Gossip Girl, Vampire Edition
by pty
Summary: A vampire history about Chuck and Blair and also with a great presence of S, D, N, J and V (the original gang) as well as little E and other characters of the GG world. Might include other supernatural beings as well.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **This is my first fan fiction. I've been debating for a while whether to publish this or not. I haven't written all but I have the general lines of the story in my head. This story happens in a vampire universe and will be focused on Chuck and Blair but Serena, Dan, Nate, Jenny, Vanessa (all of them the original 7 cast members that were the school age kids in the show) along with little Eric will be almost as important as Chuck and Blair. The parents will appear down the road but their role will be limited in this story, you will see why. Other characters in the GG universe will appear along the road as well. There is a chance that this story will end up including not only other supernatural beings but characters of other shows as well, if that happens I might have to consider label it as crossover. The vampire nature of the characters might also include vampire features beyond the ones in stories like Dracula, but for the moment vampire-style Dracula is mainly going to be pattern. From the start, I apologize if I made grammar and spelling mistakes because English is not my first language. This story is also going to go through several countries and time eras so I also apologize if I made geographical, historical or cultural mistakes, it's not my intention to offend or disrespect anybody and in fact I'm a sucker for history and for the last days I've been trying to research things in Wikipedia and Google to try to not mess this up.

I do not own any GG or other show and stories characters; if I did the TV show would not be ending up like it is.

**Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel****, Germany, 1802**

It was a dark night, no moon, and the carriage moved rapidly towards its destination. Inside the carriage lay its two occupants. Once was a dark-haired man with dark eyes, pale skin, who was sitting towards the left side of the carriage's back seat. The other occupant was a young man not too different from the dark-haired man, since he also had dark hair and eyes and pale skin, except that his facial features were not really similar to the ones of his traveling companion. Through their clothes it could be easily determined that they were both members of the upper class, since they were using the customary tall hats, vests, jackets, coats, boots and other clothes proper of the Neoclassic fashion that had taken among the European elites. They were both silent.

The carriage moved as fast as it could between the roads and forests that had to go through. Its driver had strict orders of not stopping except in very specific circumstances (which included reaching their destination) and for this he was receiving a handsome pay. However, it was also known by the carriage's driver and its occupants that this was the last stretch of this part of the journey. Just four hours after twilight, they finally arrived.

The mansion was at the end of a well-built up but rather secluded road that felt even more secluded by the trees lined up at its sides. It was the type of mansion that some at the time would have considered more like a country house, if it wasn't for the imposing façade that appear before the eyes when it was first made visible at the end of the road. Upon seeing it, it was perfectly clear that whoever lived there was a member of the upper classes, either an aristocrat or a least someone with the means to live there.

The carriage stopped and since there was no lackey in it, the driver left his seat to also do the functions proper of a lackey like open the carriage's door and unload the luggage. As soon as he opened the right side door of the carriage, its occupants started descending. Even though the dark-haired man was by the left side, he descended first, followed by the young man. Actually, they were both young, but you could tell the dark-haired man was already a man while the young man had just left puberty behind. It if wasn't for the fact that their features weren't really that similar, you might think they were brothers, in fact they could still be and maybe they simply weren't much similar one to the other. Carrying their hats in one hand and their canes in the other, once they descended the carriage they proceeded to take a look at the mansion's façade while the driver took care of their luggage.

Before any of them could say a word to each other, a young kid appeared at the doorway. He couldn't have been more than 8 years old, maybe 10 at the most. He had really jet black hair, and his skin was pale, but not so much as the two young men that he had in front of him. He dressed with clothes similar to those of a lackey, if it wasn't by the color, because the vest, breeches, shoes and jacket were all black. Only the stockings, his shirt and the cravat were white. Even the small cloak around his shoulders was black. Upon seeing the visitors, he made the customary bow reserved for the upper classes and addressed them in German.

"Good evening, Gentlemen. Your ladyship is waiting for you."

Looking at the driver unloading their luggage, the kid said: "Your driver can take your luggage to the back entrance and I will join him shortly to help him unload and show him where he and the horses will rest for the night."

The dark-haired man (and for the moment we will call him like that to help distinguish him from the younger man) proceeded to tell the driver to follow the kid's instructions. Luckily for everybody, a little more ahead of the right side of the mansion was the start of a path made visible by the torches that were lit up along the driveway in front of the mansion and seemed to continue inside that path, which clearly lead to the back entrance of the mansion, so the driver only had to upload the unloaded luggage, resume his post in the front of the carriage and follow the path that would conduct him to the back entrance, as instructed.

Meanwhile, the two visitors proceeded to follow the kid, who had turned around without a word and had entered to the interior of the mansion. The kid waited for them to follow him inside the main hall to take their coats, hats and canes, and left them alone for a moment to properly accommodate the garments. Once he rejoined them, the kid leaded the way of the visitors without seemingly worry about the entrance doors, which were left open. Then again, nor the kid nor the visitors had any reason to worry about this, and they all knew it.

Going through the main hall and some other rooms, it could have been expected they would be lavishly decorated under the Rococo style that had still been all the rage a decade ago, or even the Baroque style that had preceded and originated the Rococo style. But even though the walls and ceiling of the main hall had Rococo influences and some of the furniture had it as well, it was actually an austere, if well tasteful, interior decoration. It was like its occupant had already embraced and implemented the austere and classic forms of the new Neoclassic style. Instead of the golden and pastel colors of the Rococo, after the main hall and going more and more inside the mansion, there were more wood and dark colors and furniture, although the golden and pastels never disappeared entirely because some of it was still being kept by the new style and obviously the paintings and other Rococo decoration considered worthy still remained. It wasn't a sunny mansion, but it was a tasteful one. Finally, they reached a room lit up mostly by a fireplace, some candelabra, and with mostly Neoclassic style furniture.

Once they were all inside the room, the little boy, who had remained near the room's entrance, proceeded to announce:

"Gentlemen, I present you your ladyship the Countess."

In the entrance appeared a woman wearing a red dress, of empire style but with long sleeves. The woman had wavy brown hear, that was loose and in curls, a hairdo that was certainly not among the Neoclassic fashion styles of the time, but that contrasted beautifully with her pale skin, ruby-red lips, and made a great combination with her dark eyes. She wasn't wearing any jewelry, but she didn't need it because her loose curls were more than enough to enhance her beauty. She was also wearing a dark cape with a hood in the style of the evening capes that noble women had used for the past decades under the Rococo style. This meant that even though the hood was covering her hair, it was wide enough to allow seeing how her hair styled.

Once she appeared in the entrance, with a small smile she used both hands to remove the hood from her hair, while the boy made a bow addressing all the presents and proceeded to leave the room through another entrance (this one with a door), unnoticed until that moment by the visitors.

Now alone, the lady and the two gentlemen silently exchanged bows of their own, and once this part of the protocol was satisfy, the dark-haired man addressed her in the following terms (and in English):

"Countess…"

"Waldorf" she replied, and she started walking towards them. "Countess Waldorf" she added while walking. "And you are?"

"Mr. Bass", he replied, smirking. "Mr. Charles Bass".

"Mr. Bass" she repeated, finally in front of them. "Sounds English", she added, signaling where they could seat.

"That's the idea" Mr. Bass said, still smirking.

"And you are?" asked the countess to the young man, while they were all sitting.

"Mr. Richard Rhodes" the boy replied, sitting next to Mr. Bass in a sofa, while the countess seated in a single chair.

"I see. Nicely done, Lucius" she politely said with another smile.

The boy then re-appeared in the room and after bowing again to all the presents, like the perfect butler he was, he said in German:

"The gentlemen's luggage was unloaded and the driver showed to his chambers. His dinner has also been served. The horses are in the stables and fed as well."

"Thank you Fritz. That will be all for now" the Countess replied.

With another bow, the boy proceeded to retire.

"Did you receive our message?" Mr. Bass asked the Countess once they were alone again.

"Yes I did, and it was only the gravity in it and the fact that Celia sent it what convinced me to allow this meeting."

"I know, but we wouldn't have sent it if the matter wasn't serious."

"You know that's not true" the Countess replied.

"What Charles is trying to say," Mr. Rhodes decided to intervene before things escalated, "is that we wouldn't have sent such a message if we didn't believe that the situation is alarming."

"Alright, but I'm still not sure why you needed to contact me for. Your message did convey that the matter was urgent but did not specify what is actually going on."

"There is a thread that we have uncovered…" Mr. Bass started saying.

"A threat?" asked the Countess, raising her eyebrows.

"A threat that is dangerous not only to humans, but those of our kind as well." Mr. Bass continued where he had left of.

"Well can't you take care of it?" the Countess replied.

"This is the kind of threat where all the help we can get to fight against it will be necessary" Mr. Bass replied back.

"What exactly is this threat?" the Countess asked.

"We would prefer to explain it to you and the rest once we are all gathered" Mr. Bass answered.

"Now wait a minute…"

"We have come to ask you that you come to England with us", young Mr. Rhodes jumped in to say, knowing that a storm was coming again.

"Why should I? You haven't even told me what is going on, and now I should go with you to England?" the Countess replied annoyed, and only contained herself because of the fact that Mr. Rhodes had intervened.

"All I can say is, this is the kind of threat that could expose us all, and that is precisely why it's dangerous for us and needs be contained as soon as possible" Mr. Bass explained.

The Countess eyed Mr. Bass's face for a while, gauging his expression. She was pondering in her head everything they had said. It seemed she did this for a long while, even though only a few minutes passed. Finally she said:

"Alright. When do you need me to go?"

"As soon as possible" Mr. Bass replied.

"I need to take Fritz with me" she said.

"I know. I have made arrangements so we can all travel." Mr. Bass said.

"Does your driver know…?" the Countess asked.

"He only knows, that he's been paid generously to travel only at night, to stop and rest during the day, and that he's to travel fast and leave us in Calais to board the ship for which I have also made arrangements for. No questions asked" Mr. Bass stated.

The Countess sighed. "In that case, I will go tell Fritz that we are to travel soon. Are you hungry?" she asked, standing up in the process.

"A bit" Mr. Bass answered with a smirk, while he and Mr. Rhodes were standing up as well.

"Alright. Wait for me here" she said, and with another round of bows among the three of them, she proceeded to leave the room.

After she gave Fritz the necessary instructions to start their travel arrangements, and she made sure he had dinned and started his homework, she returned to the room where her visitors were waiting for her.

"Fritz says that your driver already dinned and retired to his chamber. Are you sure he's not going to come out again?" she asked, addressing Mr. Bass.

"Like I said," Mr. Bass replied with his usual smirk, "he's been paid to not ask any questions."

"Follow me then" she said, and proceeded to guide them through the door that Fritz had used for his last appearance and that she herself had used to look for him just a moment ago.

Through corridors and other rooms, they finally reached the kitchens. There in the light of the kitchen fire and of some candles, was Fritz sitting in the kitchen table going over a book. Before leaving the kitchen, the Countess went near him, and standing at his left side, she whispered something in his ear, which the visitors couldn't hear and only guess that was in German. She then kissed the boy's left temple and straightening her posture, she again guided her visitors, this time out of the kitchens and towards the stables.

Once they reached the stables, the Countess showed them the horses that the three of them were to use. Once they finished saddling and preparing the horses, they climbed over them and with the Countess ahead, they took the road.

Upon reaching the nearest town, the Countess and her companions stopped outside it and she signaled ahead, saying: "That is the main street. If you follow it, you will find the tavern after passing four blocks to the left. Another three blocks ahead and to the right, are the town's authorities. There is also an inn two blocks ahead of the town's entrance at the right side. There is a hospital as well, but it's on the other side of town. I wouldn't advice that side, is farther from this road and it's near the river, unless you want a midnight dive in it?" she said, rather playful.

"I think we are fine on this side, thank you" Mr. Bass said, not entirely able to hide the amusement in his voice.

The men were going to start riding again when they noticed their guide wasn't moving. "Aren't you coming?" Mr. Rhodes asked, turning around a little.

"I already ate" the Countess said, with a half-smile. "That's why I joined you in the room after you arrived, I had just returned to the mansion when your carriage arrived."

"What if we need to call you for anything? What should we call you in public?" Mr. Rhodes asked.

"Constanze" she replied. "Countess Constanze Waldorf". "I will stay back around here waiting for you" she added.

"You should come with us" Mr. Rhodes said.

"I'll be alright" she replied.

"Very well then" Mr. Bass said, knowing that she would not be convinced to follow then. "We will see you in a while" he said.

Both men started riding towards the town for their meal.

**A/N:** I'm not sure how this is going to look once published so I also apologized if it's too long, I wasn't even sure to end it here because it wasn't exactly how I imaged the first chapter would end but I figured it would be longer if I continued it and it looked like an o.k. cliffhanger to me. I'll try to update as soon as I can. Some of you might wonder who is who and what's the deal with the names, I will explain that along the way, but I just realized that for the record, I need to clear that the three main characters here are Chuck, Blair and Eric. I did invented Fritz and the carriage's driver, so I guess I own them? Anyways, things will be clearer down the road, I promise.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** Sorry for the delay, I wanted to finish this chapter sooner but it wasn't possible. I feel it might be longer than the previous one but I had to finish it right where it did, it didn't feel right to finish it earlier. Just I quick note, for the hair I already mentioned that Blair hair was loose and in curls, you can imagine her hair a bit like in 3x11 or 3x12, maybe a season 1 hair too. For Chuck, the time period where the action is happening for now calls for a haircut like the one he had in 1x12 or even 1x14, but the thing is his looks in 1x12 were more boyish and for the overall story I tend to think in his face like he looked in season 3 and the beginning of season 4 (4x2, I think you can imagine why) so for this time period in particular maybe a mix of both things? For Eric definitely season 2 onwards looks, I don't feel he changed that much between seasons 2, 3 and 4.

I don't own anything, if I did the show wouldn't be like it is now.

After the visitors finished their meal, they all headed back to the mansion. Once they arrived to the stables, they unsaddled the horses and made sure everything was in order before returning to the main house by the same route they had previously used.

When they finally reached the kitchens, Fritz had just started the travel preparations for his mistress and himself.

"Did you finish your lessons?" The Countess asked Fritz in German.

"Yes, Milady" was his reply.

"I see you started gathering the things I asked you to" she added.

She was going to say something more, but then remembered that they were not alone.

"Would you mind wait for me while we finish here?" She said to her visitors in English. "I need to go over some things with him first" she said referring to Fritz.

"Not at all" Mr. Bass said with a rather charming smile, which did not entirely escape her attention.

"I trust you will find your way back" she said, the perfect hostess, but deciding to ignore Mr. Bass's charm.

"Don't worry. I'm sure we will find something to do in the meantime" Mr. Bass said smoothly before leaving the kitchens with Mr. Rhodes.

Whether she wanted to retort "I'm sure you will do" to him or not, it is unknown.

Turning to Fritz once more, she asked him:

"Did you finish your Mathematics lesson?"

"Yes, Milady."

"And your German lesson?"

"Yes, Milady."

"Very well, I will check them now, and after we finish I will teach you another lesson and leave you homework for tomorrow. Like I told you before, today we won't study Latin and Greek, and once we finish with today's lessons I will help you finish with what you started before we returned." And with this the Countess sat down with Fritz in the kitchen table to look over his lessons.

After they finished going through Fritz's lessons for the day, she proceeded to help him with the things he was doing before her return, that were none other than start preparing the trunks for their travel and the things that they needed to pack in them. Naturally they couldn't finish packing in one night, but for that night they were going to pack and move certain things and what was left pending could be packed the next night. When she determined that they had reached a point where they could stop, she told the boy the following:

"Let's show our visitors their chambers." And with this said, they left the kitchens in direction to the room where their visitors were waiting for them.

Once the Countess and Fritz arrived to the room where she had greeted her visitors for the first time, they found each of them in an individual chair, reading. Fritz had entered the room first, with the Countess just a couple of steps behind him, so once they stopped walking she placed her hands in the boy's shoulders while standing behind him and addressed the visitors in English:

"Sorry to keep you waiting for so long. We had some things that we needed to finish first."

"It's alright. We managed to keep ourselves busy in the meantime" Mr. Bass said, showing her the book.

"I see you found the library" she said, not at all surprised that he went around snooping. In fact she was expecting it.

"I hope that you don't mind, I took the liberty of exploring your library in search of something to distract us. You certainly have an impressive collection. Schiller?" he said, referring to the book in his hands.

"Yes" she replied, with a haughty edge on her voice.

"Goethe too", he continued, moving his head briefly towards the book that Mr. Rhodes had in his hands. "And several French authors…" he drawled.

"Fritz and I have come to ask you if you would like to see your chambers now" the Countess interrupted him in German, with a bit of a toss of her head.

Mr. Rhodes was silently observing this exchange. He knew better than to intervene.

"Please, lead the way" Mr. Bass said in German like nothing had happened.

Both men stood up and started walking towards the Countess and her servant. She and the boy turned around and guided the way towards the chambers.

They finally reached one of the rooms of the house, which had a door hidden in one of the walls. The visitors noticed it as soon as the Countess opened it. This time she let Fritz walk ahead of them while they all started to descend a group of stairs. In that way, they reached a totally underground hallway illuminated only by the light of the torches alternated between heavy oak doors at both sides of the hallway. It wasn't a narrow corridor, but rather a spacious one, and the doors looked strong and they clearly had heavy locks.

After they passed a couple of closed doors, Fritz stood in front of one of the doors at the right side of the group and proceeded to unlock and open it. However, he stood by the door, while the Countess and her visitors followed inside.

"This will be your chamber" the Countess said in English addressing Mr. Bass (who had entered immediately behind her) all the while taking a look around and turning to face him. Mr. Rhodes, who had suspected as much about the sleeping arrangements, preferred to stay rather close to the doorway where Fritz was still standing and silently watching the scene.

From where he was standing, Mr. Bass also took a look around, finding the room satisfactory. There was a grand bed of dark wood that was the central focus on the chamber. Although there were no paintings in the walls and in the ceiling, only a rather cream color in the walls (maybe lime?) the chamber was grand in size and it had a dresser, chairs, tables and candles giving proper lighting. On the inside of the oak door, metal reinforcements were visible, proving that the door was even more resilient than what it looked like from the outside, and there was also a bolt to lock it from the inside.

"No canopy bed?" he asked to tease her. It worked.

"Listen, you know how much work it took to get all this underground system below the house and move the furniture down here? I had to get really brittle people that nobody was going to miss after the job ended. Whenever Fritz and I need to move something down here it takes a great effort to do so, which is why we to try to keep here only the essentials."

"Really? A good bag of money couldn't have bought their silence?" He asked, while walking a little around the room.

"Not if I wanted to make sure they wouldn't be a threat down the road" she stated.

He seemed to accept her explanation because he didn't add anything else, and in fact for a moment something flashed in his eyes, like a tale sign that he was now serious about the issue and he understood the situation.

She must have noticed it, because as a way to change the conversation, she said the following:

"Fritz"

"The gentleman's trunks were place on the left side of the dresser" the boy said in German, understanding that his mistress had meant for him to speak.

Turning around, the Countess addressed Mr. Rhodes in German. "Now, I will show you your room …" she paused mid-sentence.

"Richard" Mr. Rhodes reminded her.

"Richard," she repeated "please follow me." And she went out of the room with him and Fritz behind.

In the meantime Mr. Bass proceeded to take a closer look to the things inside the room, knowing that they would be detained for a while. When he figured that enough time had passed, he went out of his chamber, just when the others were leaving Mr. Rhodes's chamber, which was right next to his.

"And where is your chamber?" he asked the Countess in a rather smarmy way.

"You will never know it" she replied with a fake smile and practically gritted teeth.

"Charles" Mr. Rhodes said as a way of warning. He knew they couldn't provoke her hostess much.

"There are still several hours till dawn" Mr. Bass said nonchalantly "and we already ate. What are we going to do in the meantime?"

"Well," she answered "Fritz needs to have his midnight snack, for which he's already pass the hour. We also need to finish packing some things and secure the ones that will stay here in my absence."

"Maybe we could help you packing" Mr. Bass offered as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

"The world will have to freeze over before I let you touch my things" she bitchly replied.

"Or maybe I could wander around the upper rooms, see what you have there, which one is your fake bedchamber, what secrets do you keep in it…."

"If you want to go there and waste your time till dawn looking for things that are not there, I have no problem with that" she fake-sweetly replied. "In the meantime, Fritz and I will go to do something useful. Are you coming, Richard?" she said to the latter one, and started walking to the stairs with Fritz in tow.

Mr. Rhodes also started to follow her, but not without giving another warning look to Mr. Bass, where he seemed to say "Stop provoking her. Aren't you afraid she will backtrack on her word?" to which Mr. Bass only smirked once he was left alone.

Once the other 3 were above, they started walking towards the kitchens, with Mr. Rhodes saying to the Countess in English:

"How long does that corridor go?"

"Until an exit in the forest" she answered, and then added: "I figured it would be the safest place to go in an emergency".

"Does that exit have a cover?"

"Of course."

They continued silently until they reached the kitchen. Once there, Fritz proceeded to serve in a bowl the broth that he had left cooking slowly, and he sat down at the kitchen table to eat without a word.

In the meantime the Countess started reviewing some of the things they had already packed, while making mental notes about other things.

"It's a light meal" Mr. Rhodes observed.

"I don't want him to eat anything heavy so late at night" the Countess said.

After another beat of silence, Mr. Rhodes said: "I don't suppose you want me help you pack either."

"I'm sorry" she said apologetically, and she really meant it. "But with Charles here, it's better if we don't put you in the middle or that you feel compromised in any way…"

"It's alright, I understand" he said.

"You know I would ask you to help me if I could…" she started again.

"Really, I get it" he said, with a bit of laugh in his voice. "You don't have to explain it."

"Well, for what is worth, thank you for understand" she said with a hint of a smile.

"You are welcome" Mr. Rhodes said. "I think I will go back to that book I was reading earlier. It will help me to go over my German."

"Of course" she said, while moving around the kitchens a little. "I imagine you have continued with your studies as much as you can."

"It's not easy, and it has never been easy" Mr. Rhodes said, "but I think it has gotten easier through the years."

"I do hope my books can help you then" the Countess said. "The library is at your disposal for anything you need."

"Thank you, I appreciate it." Mr. Rhodes said. "If you excuse me, Milady" Mr. Rhodes said, making a bow to retire.

"Mr. Rhodes" the Countess said, making a bow of her own.

They both couldn't help little smiles of amusement to the protocol of it all, and Mr. Rhodes retired from the kitchens to retake the reading of that book.

Meanwhile, Mr. Bass had gone to snoop around again, this time to the upper floors just as he had insinuated to the Countess. He went through many rooms and bedrooms of the house, until he finally found the one he believed the Countess kept for the public, boudoir and everything. It was lavish, luxurious, more Rococo than Neoclassic (in fact, several bedrooms had a bit of that), but he couldn't find a hint of anything actually personal or significant for the Countess.

What he didn't know is that while he was going through the upper rooms and Mr. Rhodes had returned to his book, the Countess had gone to a study room where she also had a secret entrance, this time to a small room that contained her valuables. She took the money that she thought might need for her and Fritz to travel alone, some documents that by experience knew it was better to carry with her, and some other things. She quickly brought them to the kitchens where she had a trunk available for part of the things she was carrying, with a false floor at the bottom of the trunk to hide them there. On top of that she also put clothes and other things, making sure they weren't the most important or lavish looking. She carried the things that she didn't put in the trunk to her real bedroom in the underground hallway, making sure to lock it after exiting it with the key she always carried with her. She quickly returned upstairs and went to the drawing-room, where she wrote some instructions in a sheet of paper that she needed be carry out as well.

By the time she returned to the kitchens Fritz had finished his meal and washed the dishes. She helped him with the laundry and they also packed more things, mostly his clothes and some other essentials she deemed necessary for them. By that time it was 4 o' clock in the morning and she decided he needed to go to sleep, even though it was earlier than the time he usually went to sleep.

Contrary to her case and the one of her visitors, his room was near the kitchens and the room where the driver was sleeping. What nobody could imagine is that this room also had a secret entrance that connected with one of the rooms of the underground hallway, all in case of an emergency. She made sure that he completed all that he needed to do before sleeping and she tucked him in bed. Fritz was allowed to lock the main door from the insight, and he always carried the key with himself, while she carried another copy of the same key with herself, which allowed her to also lock the door, which she was going to have to do today not because she was keeping him a prisoner or something of the sort but because she had already tucked him in bed and for him to lock the room from the inside he would had to get out of bed. Once he was properly tucked-in, she sat down next to him in bed, facing him, and she started saying while passing a hand through his hairs:

"Tomorrow after I wake up we will continue packing. I need to go through with Mr. Bass and Mr. Rhodes when we will go to eat, but I imagine it will be more or less at the same time of today. While we are out, you will do your homework and study your lessons for the day. Give a read to Latin and Greek so you can keep up. I will see at my return if we can look at a little of History and Geography, if not it will be the next day. I will ask Mr. Bass if he can do something about his driver so he doesn't bother you while you study, but do prepare dinner for both of you like this is a regular thing to do in the house. I gather he is German?"

"Yes, Milady" the boy answered.

"You have two or three hours of sleep before the driver wakes up. Make breakfast for both of you. If he asks anything, you just tell him that we are most likely going to sleep-in late because as far as you know we were up late talking, but you did receive the instruction to go deliver a letter on my behalf and that you need him to drive you there. Give him this paper" she proceeded to give him a small piece of paper, "with money that I left in the usual place. The paper says the town you need to go and the person you need to look for and that I instruct to let you sit down inside the carriage. You remember the town and the person we visited the other time, right?"

"Yes I do, Milady" the boy answered.

"That is the person I'm sending you to see. We need somebody to look after the house in our absence." She made a small pause, and then continued. "Take the opportunity to sleep while you are inside the carriage. Once you arrive to the town and find him, give him this piece of paper" she said, taking out of her dress the piece of paper she had written before in the study. "Ask him to send me a written reply. Keep it hidden in your clothes so no one can see it. He will also feed you and the driver before you return here. Going to the town and back will most likely take you all day."

"Yes Milady" the boy said.

"Alright then. Sleep well" she said, and she kissed him in the forehead.

The boy put the papers in his bedside table and she got up and left the room, pausing near the door before leaving to blow the candles that were in a nearby table.

After leaving Fritz room, she went down to her chamber and ready more clothes and other things to pack. She did this with the door locked to avoid being unexpectedly surprised by anyone. Another hour went by until she decided to go upstairs to bid her visitors good night. She decided to go looking for Mr. Rhodes first.

When she entered the room where she had first received her visitors she found Mr. Rhodes reading and Mr. Bass walking around the room, looking at things. This certainly made her task easier.

"It's almost dawn now. I'm going to sleep" the Countess said.

"I should go to sleep too" Mr. Rhodes said, putting the book aside and getting up.

"Indeed" Mr. Bass said, turning around to face the Countess. "Do you know how long it will take for you to…?"

"I'm still not sure" the Countess cut him off. "There are several things I need to do first, but believe me we are doing this as fast as we can."

"It's alright, I just wanted to ask. Let's go all to rest then" Mr. Bass said.

They left the room together and went to the room with the hidden entrance to the underground hallway. She waited for them to start descending the stairs first because the hidden entrance also had a bolt on the inside and she needed to lock it first before descending the stairs. Once they all reached the bottom of the stairwell, they started walking the hallway to the part where Mr. Bass and Mr. Rhodes chambers located.

"Well, good night then. I'll see you tomorrow" Mr. Rhodes bid his farewell and entered his chamber as quick as he could without seeming too obvious, because he was sensing a storm was coming.

Mr. Bass and the Countess said goodnight to him, and once alone, the Countess addressed Mr. Bass: "Good night, I'll see you tomorrow" she said, and turned around to leave.

"Wait a minute" he said, taking her forearm and by that making her turn around again. "That is all that you are going to tell me?"

"I don't know what you want me to tell you" she said, looking him straight in the eyes.

"Last time…" he started.

"I don't want to talk about last time. Or any other time."

"You don't have to do this alone." He said, trying another angle.

"I have done it pretty good all by myself, thank you very much."

"You know what I mean" he pretty much groaned.

"No, I don't."

"I don't want anything to happen to you."

"I can take care of myself."

"It's not an issue of whether you can or not, because I know you can. But you know as well as I do that this is dangerous, and it would be less dangerous if you were at least with the others. Or with me."

"Don't do this" she said, with a voice between steady and pleading.

"What will it take for you to believe I have changed? He asked

"You haven't changed."

"We have all changed. We had to, the times are different."

"The times might be different, but you haven't changed. If you were, you wouldn't be doing this." She said, and with those parting words she took her wrist out of his hand, turned around and went inside her chamber, locking the door after closing it.

Mr. Bass stood there in the hallway, looking wistfully in the direction where she had disappeared inside her chamber, so hastily that she didn't realize he now knew which one was her chamber. Not that it mattered now because he knew she would lock the door every time she went in and out of that room. Most of all, he knew that for tonight, he had messed it up.

Mr. Bass went inside his chamber and closed the door. Without locking it.

**A/N:** I promise that in the next chapter the rest of the gang will make their first appearance.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** It wasn't my intention to finish this chapter were it ended, in my head the chapter ended after the meeting mentioned at the end, but it was getting too long and I kinda liked the cliff hanger.

I do not own any GG or other show and stories characters; if I did the TV show would have ended better than it did.

It took the Countess and Fritz three more day to finish all the preparations that needed be completed before traveling. On the first day, Fritz complied with the errand that the Countess assigned him. That night, Mr. Bass wouldn't have had to worry about the driver, because when he went to check the driver after the Countess spoke with him and asked what could be done to distract the driver during the first hours of the night, he found out that the driver was so tired due to that's day travel and the change in schedule that he just wanted to eat and sleep. Therefore, Mr. Bass recommended the Countess and Mr. Rhodes that they went out for their meal after the driver went to sleep, and so they did. Fritz did his homework, studied his lessons that later reviewed with the Countess (History and Geography had to wait for the next day) and delivered to his mistress the reply she had requested, without anyone else noticing. Of course, Mr. Bass and Mr. Rhodes did found out that their driver had to take Fritz to an errand, but the Countess told them it was to put all the valuables that she wasn't going to take with her under a banker's care.

For the second and third day, Mr. Bass's idea to distract the driver was to make him take them in the carriage to one of the nearby towns, with the excuse of going to dinner at an inn, telling the driver to go back for them in two or three hours. But unknown to their driver, they only went to the inn to go out through its back entrance and get their meals, to later return to the place and from there to the waiting carriage. They were also able to go through the inn unnoticed by the people in it.

During those days, the Countess also made Fritz sleep earlier than usual, as she had done on the first night her visitors arrived. She did this, because she wasn't entirely sure how their trip would go, and she might need Fritz to be awake during a few hours in the daytime. Usually when she traveled alone she could have more control of these things, but in this case their journey was being organize by others, namely Mr. Bass, and she wasn't exactly enthusiastic of asking him more details about the arrangements, though she did know he would keep all of them safe.

Late on the third night she informed Mr. Bass and Mr. Rhodes that she was finally ready to travel the next night.

"I will lock the house upon our departure. Do you want to go eat first or do you want to go later?" The Countess asked them.

"We should go eat first" Mr. Bass replied. "We can task the driver to put our luggage in the carriage with Fritz's help and in the meantime we can sneak out for our meal. What are you going to do with the horses?" he asked, because he hadn't seen her take any measure about the animals.

"We could sell them in the first town in which we make a stop," she answered "but to be honest, I think we should consider taking them with us, at least through part of our journey. I'm not sure all our luggage can fit in the carriage with us."

"We could put part of it on the horses" Mr. Bass mused, "and Richard and I could ride two of them. But that leaves the problem of the third horse. Could Fritz ride one of them?"

"He can" the Countess answered.

"But still, I would prefer if you two be inside the carriage. We could also yoke two of the horses to it and one of us could ride the third horse" Mr. Bass said, referring to himself and Mr. Rhodes.

"But are the carriage's reins capable of yoking two more horses?" Mr. Rhodes asked.

"We also have a carriage here" the Countess said, "we could take it with us, but then we have the issue of what to do with it after we reach Calais."

"Yes, it would be too much complication" Mr. Bass reflected.

"So what are we going to do?" Mr. Rhodes asked.

"We could take the three horses with us." The Countess said. "Fritz can ride one of them. If that makes you feel uncomfortable" she added, addressing Mr. Bass "then we can either tie the horse to the carriage somehow or we can release it in the nearby woods before our departure."

"I don't know if the carriage is capable of having add to it one or two more horses, I would have to check" Mr. Bass said, "Fritz is only a child. Are you sure he can ride as fast as we can?" he asked the Countess.

"He can" the Countess replied with a hint of proud "but if you are not satisfied, you can always say so and we will make other arrangements."

Mr. Bass thought for a moment and then said: "No, it's too risky. I don't want to risk someone seeing us that starts asking too many questions. We should do it only until we reach the first town and then sell the horse."

"If you insist" the Countess said dismissively, "I still think it could be done since there will be two grown men riding with him, but you were the one who arranged our travel in the first place so it's your call."

"So, it's settled then" Mr. Bass said. "We will leave tomorrow."

They did as they agreed and went to the town for their meals after instructing the driver to start uploading the luggage to the carriage with Fritz's help. After they snuck back to the house, Mr. Bass instructed the driver to have everything ready for their departure the next day, after sunset.

In the meantime the routine established by the house's occupants continued like in the previous nights, although this time the Countess and her visitors root around the house saloons until the driver went to sleep, to not raise suspicions. In the same line, Fritz made sure to carry out food towards the dining hall and to bring the empty dishes to the kitchen, all to keep the façade that the masters had dinned while they had actually snuck out of the house (he had ways of disposing of the untouched food without having to bring it back to the kitchens). After the driver went to sleep, the Countess and her servant continued with their routine of lessons, his midnight meal, and packing, which they finished that night as expected. She also tucked Fritz in his bed like the first night the visitors arrived, at the same time he had gone to sleep for the last days.

"Tomorrow we will begin our journey to England" she said, while passing her right hand through his hairs. "Are you excited?"

"Yes, Milady" the boy replied.

"You don't have to say that for my benefit, it's alright if you are afraid."

"I'm not, Milady" he said, and after a small pause, he continued. "Will it be too long?"

"No" she said with a small smile. "We will travel fast. Once we are there, we will take the opportunity to reinforce your English. It might seem at first that you don't understand much but you will learn fast, I promise."

"Yes, Milady" the boy said.

"Good night. Have a good night sleep" she said, giving the boy a hug, which he also returned.

The Countess got back to her visitors and they all finished the last preparations they needed to do before their travel the next day. During all those days, Mr. Bass had continued his search through the house's rooms, without finding what he was looking for. He and the Countess didn't have another exchange like the one of the first night though, although they were both perfectly aware of what the other one was doing.

Their journey started the next day and as agreed, Mr. Bass and Mr. Rhodes rode two of the horses. The Countess locked the house and all of its chambers (known ones and hidden ones) and Fritz rode the third horse during the first part of their journey, with the necessary ability to prove the words of the Countess. Nevertheless they did sell the horse upon reaching the first town, and Fritz continued traveling with the Countess in the carriage. After leaving the Landgraviate, going through German lands and entering France with a steadfastness that impressed the Countess (not that she was going to tell it to Mr. Bass), they finally reached Calais. There, Mr. Bass paid the driver what was left to pay for his services, and as a bonus, he included the two horses in the payment (naturally the Countess had agreed with this first). The driver was surprise enough to not want to accept the horses at first, but he ended up accepting, just like Mr. Bass knew he would. Afterwards, Mr. Bass, Mr. Rhodes, the Countess and Fritz boarded the ship.

Although the waters in the Channel are tricky, they managed to reach Dover without setbacks. There, another carriage was waiting for them, this one with the capacity to carry the four of them and their luggage. As in the European mainland, this carriage drive had also been schedule to travel at night, and in fact Mr. Bass, Mr. Rhodes, the Countess and Fritz left the ship and got in the carriage at the start of the next night after the ship reached the docks.

Their destination was not in London, but in Surrey. After a couple of days traveling, they reached it a few hours after sunset. During those nights traveling not many words were exchange between the group, but the Countess was informed of their destination and the time it would take to reach it.

They arrived to a country house of respectable size and appearance. Upon arriving, Mr. Bass and Mr. Rhodes descended from the carriage first, to see for the luggage. Fritz and the Countess descended afterwards. After descending, they stood beside the carriage for a few moments admiring the front of the house. The Countess stood behind Fritz with her hands on his shoulders, in a fashion similar to the one she used the first night of Mr. Rhodes and Mr. Bass arrival to her state, when she and Fritz went to look for them to show them their chambers, only this time the Countess and Fritz were looking the front of the house up and down.

"It is grand, isn't it?" The Countess told Fritz in German. "It doesn't look that much different from home." She was wearing a cloak in a pale blue tone, and a bonnet in the same color, an ensemble more in tone with the Neoclassic trend. Her dress was in a darker shade of blue. Fritz was wearing dark clothes as always.

"You and Fritz can go inside, if you wish" Mr. Bass said in German, passing by them and climbing the few steps at the entrance to open the doors with his key. "The others should be waiting for us inside. Richard and I will finish outside and will join you shortly" he added, while he turned around and got back to them, after opening the doors.

"Are you sure? They won't mind that we enter like that?" The Countess asked him, while turning her head slightly in his direction, because he passed by them to go to the carriage.

"Of course not," Mr. Bass answered. "I'm sure Celia will be anxious to see you."

Unknown to them, their arrival had already been noticed by the occupants of the house. The Countess and Fritz climbed the steps and after going through the entrance, arrived to the main hall. They admired the luxury and decoration of it, the grand staircase, the ceiling's height and decor, with beautiful Rococo paintings. They had barely finish crossing to the other side of the main hall and there were starting to notice the other rooms and hallways that communicated with it when they heard the following noise:

"Corneliaaaaaaaaa!," a woman's voice screamed, and before the Countess knew it, a tall and blond female had run towards her and had enveloped her in a hug.

"Celia!" reprimanded the Countess, after they disentangled from the hug. "What were you thinking? Do you know how dangerous it would be if the driver heard you?"

"I'm sorry, "Countess"" the blond woman said, gathering the sides of her dress in her hands and doing a small (and must be said, cute) curtsey with a smile in her face. She dressed herself in a white Neoclassic style dress, and her hair was also styled in the new trend, a high up-do that tried to mimic the way ancient Greek women used to style their hairdo's.

Just a few moments before this scene, the following happened:

When the carriage was at the end of the road leading to the house, the noise of the horses and carriage alerted to its occupants that someone was coming down the road. The blond woman was in the drawing-room sowing when she first heard the noise and immediately a man arrived to the room.

"They are here" the man said to her. He was a tall man, with a sandy blond hair, blue eyes, a rather athletic complexion, and noble features. Like Mr. Bass and Mr. Rhodes, he dressed under the new Neoclassic style. "You should tell the others while I go open the doors."

"They are here?" the blond woman said excitedly, while she stood up from where she was sitting and started to practically jump as she walked towards the man, "I cannot wait to say hi to Cornelia…"

"Celia, come on," the man practically groaned, but could not keep a smile away from his face upon seeing the woman's behavior, "you should go to the kitchens first to tell the others so they can also greet them, while I go open the doors or look for Decimus so he can help…"

"No, I want to be the first one to greet them" the woman whined, while taking the forearms of the man with her hands.

This continued for a few minutes, until they realized that the noise from the horses had stopped and that the front doors were being open. Before the man could say more, the woman had left the room and started running down the hallway towards the main hall. All the man could do was rolling his eyes good-naturedly and go to the kitchens to give the news to the others.

Going back to the present scene, the Countess appraised her friend and with a smile, asked the following:

"And how should I call you?"

"Miss Catherine Rhodes, at your service, Countess" the blond woman answered with a smile and another curtsey.

"Countess Constanze Waldorf" the Countess said with a curtsey of her own, understanding it was now her turn for introductions. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Rhodes."

Just in that moment the man who had the previous interaction with Ms. Rhodes arrived to the scene.

"Cornelia, it's so good to see you," he said smiling, while giving her another hug. He did make sure to keep his voice down.

"It's so nice to see you too, Mr.…." the Countess said after their hug, with another smile on her face.

"Fitzwilliam Archibald" the man replied.

"Fitzwilliam, quite impressive" the Countess said, appraising the name.

Just in that moment Mr. Bass arrived to the main hall, carrying part of the luggage.

"Ehem" he said, to make himself notice.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Mr. Archibald said, noticing that his friend needed help, "excuse me." And he left the women to go towards Mr. Bass.

"You have so much to tell me," Ms. Rhodes gushed, while taking her friend's hands between her own ones, "you must tell me about Germany and…" and she continued gushing about several things.

In the meantime, Mr. Archibald reached Mr. Bass, who had already put the luggage aside, and both men greeted each other with bows.

"Mr. Bass, welcome home. I trust your journey was pleasant" Mr. Archibald said with a smile.

"Very funny. Are the others here?" Mr. Bass said, while eyeing the Countess, who continued speaking with Ms. Rhodes. Not that any of this surprised both men.

"Pretty much, yes" Mr. Archibald said with a sigh.

"Richard is taking care of paying the driver, but we need help to unload the luggage. As you can imagine, she needed to bring several things before leaving her house."

"Let's go, my friend" Mr. Archibald said jovially, while putting a hand in his friend shoulder. They went out the front doors. "So, how was your journey?" Mr. Archibald asked, teasing his friend.

In the meantime the Countess and Ms. Rhodes had remained in the main hall, still talking.

"I do have things to tell you, especially about the last years. You can imagine the general commotion with the events in France," the Countess said, rolling her eyes, "but we need to get installed in our chambers first" she said, while motioning to Fritz, who had stay in the sideways of his mistress's previous interactions, to come near them.

"Oh Cornelia, he's so cute!" Ms. Rhodes gushed, forgetting the first reprimand of the Countess, which earned her another eye roll.

"Say hello, Fritz" the Countess said to the boy in German, while placing her right arm around his shoulders in a soothing gesture. Despite the calm face that Fritz showed to everything, she knew that in that particular moment he was a bit nervous. Her friend could be such a force of nature, and being in a new environment certainly was enough to make a child apprehensive. After a brief hesitation, the child finally spoke.

"Good evening, Miss." He said, in perfect English and with a bow.

"Oh Cornelia, you have been teaching him English!" Ms. Rhodes gushed again, joining her hands and placing them near her face with a small jump, earning herself a glare from the Countess for the use of that name. But Ms. Rhodes would remain undeterred.

"Come on, you must greet the others at once!" Ms. Rhodes said, while taking the Countess left hand and start dragging her towards the hallway, Fritz in tow too. In that moment Mr. Bass and Mr. Archibald returned to the main hall with another part of the luggage and cached the end part of the conversation.

"Catherine, while you are at it," Mr. Bass called, "could you gather the others in one of the rooms?"

Upon hearing her name, Ms. Rhodes stopped, and she, the Countess and Fritz turned around and heard the request from Mr. Bass. A smile crossed Ms. Rhodes's face and she started running towards Mr. Bass and before anyone could stop her, she had enveloped him a hug while saying:

"I haven't greeted you today, my brother."

"Celia, come on" Mr. Bass groaned, which earned him another eye roll from the Countess. Didn't anyone here know how to keep a good façade? In the meantime Mr. Bass managed to quickly disentangle himself from Ms. Rhodes's hug, although he did have to give her something of a hug, because otherwise she wasn't going to leave him alone. "If it is about greetings, then you should go greet your other brother too" he said, while motioning towards the front doors. Ms. Rhodes smiled and immediately ran off towards the front entrance.

"Don't worry, the driver already left" Mr. Bass said addressing the Countess. He hadn't missed how she wasn't happy about what she perceived was carelessness with the names.

"Well, I'm going outside" Mr. Archibald said. He, like Mr. Rhodes back in Germany, didn't want to be in the middle of conversations between the Countess and Mr. Bass.

"Is this place safe?" the Countess asked, Fritz still next to her.

"You are not the only one who has taken measures to build a safe place to live" Mr. Bass said, while slowly walking a few steps towards the Countess. But only a few steps.

The Countess might have asked more, but in that moment Ms. Rhodes returned from the front entrance.

"Richard and Fitz say they need you to finish bring in the luggage," Ms. Rhodes said addressing Mr. Bass, "and to bring it to the chambers. Fitz knows the rooms prepared for our visitors."

Without waiting for Mr. Bass's reply, she continued walking towards the Countess and Fritz, while saying:

"Come, we must go meet the others" and interlacing arms with the Countess, they ventured inside the hallway.

Ms. Rhodes guided the Countess to the kitchens. There, under the fireplace light, there was a girl sowing some things. Her complexion was pale too, and she was also blond, with hair perhaps in a slightly paler tone than Ms. Rhodes's hair. In the same way, she had blue eyes like Ms. Rhodes, though her eyes seemed slightly blue-ish, more similar to Mr. Archibald's eyes than to Ms. Rhodes. It couldn't be appreciated in that moment because she was sitting, but she was almost as tall as Ms. Rhodes, with long legs like her, although the rest of her complexion was different (Ms. Rhodes was more statuesque). Overall you could tell this girl was similar to Mr. Rhodes in the sense she had just left puberty behind. She was wearing a Neoclassic dress in a sort of peach tone. Her hair was in a high up-do too, with the current trend, although less luxurious and complicated than the one Ms. Rhodes was currently sporting.

Upon reaching the kitchens, Ms. Rhodes said the following:

"Countess, may I present you, Ms. Jane Hudson."

Upon hearing her name, the girl looked up from her sewing and after seeing them, she stood up and made a bow.

"Countess" she greeted.

The Countess smiled a little and advanced a few steps, to make her own bow while saying: "Ms. Hudson."

There was a small moment of silence, and the Countess added:

"So, this is the name you go for now?"

"It is" the girl replied. "It wasn't until recently, but we figured that if we were going to stay here for a while, we needed to start using English names."

The Countess gave a rather tight smile. She still hadn't decided whether to change names or not.

"Well, I'm Constanze Waldorf" the Countess said, "and this is Fritz" she added, motioning towards the boy.

"It is very nice to meet you" the girl said in German, surprising everybody.

"What?" she asked, upon seeing the faces of Ms. Rhodes and the Countess. "Like I said, until recently I was going for another name, and I've been in several countries all this time."

The Countess was going to add something more to the conversation, but in that moment, another woman entered the kitchens.

This woman was different from the other three women in the kitchens. Her skin tone was something rather unique. It was a tone darker than an olive skin tone, maybe slightly similar to the color of the coffee with milk. Her hair was black, apparently of the curly type although it was a bit difficult to tell because she had another high up-do, though as Ms. Hudson, it wasn't too complicated or luxurious. Her eyes were not dark though, but a kind of ice blue tone. She wasn't as tall as Ms. Rhodes or Ms. Hudson, but she was certainly taller than the Countess. She was wearing a yellow dress, in the new Neoclassic style, but more plane than the one Ms. Hudson had.

"What is she doing here?" the Countess immediately snapped upon seeing her.

"Cornelia..." Ms. Rhodes started.

"I have the right to be here as much as you do" the woman replied to the Countess.

"Last time I checked the only right you had left was to disappear from our lives" the Countess bitchly replied.

"Vibiana has as much right to be here as you are" Ms. Hudson said in a decisive tone, "and as much vested interest as any of us in this matter".

The Countess remained silent for a moment, looking at Ms. Hudson. Evaluating. Calculating.

"I see you still feel the need to protect her, just like old times…" the Countess started.

"I see nothing has changed" a male voice interrupted.

All the others turned their heads towards the place where the voice had come from, which was none other than the kitchen's entrance. Here, there was another man, around the same age of Mr. Bass and Mr. Archibald. His skin was pale, but perhaps a bit less so than Mr. Bass and Mr. Rhodes (to be fair, Mr. Archibald was also a bit less pale that Mr. Bass and Mr. Rhodes, but it was barely noticeable, and with this man it was also difficult to tell at first sight, but it was easier to tell at second sight). He had jet black hair, with a haircut quite a tune with some of the haircuts popular among men's fashion in those days. His eyes were brown, like Mr. Bass or the Countess, but he lacked the shape and mischief of Mr. Bass's eyes, and although his eyes were more similar to the doe-eye quality and shape of the Countess's eyes, he also lacked the power and nobility she could convey with one look. It's not that there was something wrong with his eyes, because they were pretty in their own merit, but their appeal was precisely the fact that they were essentially normal, though as every red-blooded male, he could turn on the charm if he wanted to. But you could tell that wasn't his regular modus operandi. He was slightly less tall than Mr. Archibald but also a bit taller than Mr. Bass, therefore his height was between theirs. His complexion was closer to Mr. Archibald than to Mr. Bass but he was a bit skinnier than Mr. Archibald, but not so much so it could be worrisome. Although he could not convey power like Mr. Bass or the Countess, you could see honesty in his features, and he was decently dressed, not as luxuriously as Mr. Archibald or Mr. Bass but his clothes were decent and in line with the current fashion.

The surprise that his interruption caused only lasted a few seconds because he carried on with what he was saying:

"You are still as unforgiving as you always have been" the man said addressing the Countess, while shaking his head.

"And you are as preachy as ever" the Countess snapped back to him.

"I'm just saying we should try to keep things civil between us all, Countess", he said, while making a bow that had something of a mockery.

"Now you are the authority in manners, Mr.….?" the Countess snapped back again, clearly not pleased with being contradicted by several persons at once.

"Mr. Randolph Hudson, Countess" he said, but he was tense. It was obvious he was trying not to lose his patience with her.

"Mr. Hudson," the Countess said giving a tight and clearly fake smile "surely you remember that this woman" she said pointing towards Vibiana, "shouldn't be between us."

"If Vibiana is here, it's because the others decided that she needed to be here as well" Mr. Hudson said, still trying to keep calm. "Neither I or my sister invited her. The decision to ask her to come was taken by the others, and if they decided to do so is because the issue is serious enough to need as much help as possible."

"That may be so, but…" the Countess started.

"If you have a problem with that, take it to the others." Mr. Hudson interrupted her, finally getting tired of their argument.

"You forget I was invited here too, and I can leave whenever I want…" the Countess started, rising out her voice.

"Cornelia…" Ms. Rhodes started in a low and rather sad voice while trying to touch the Countess's right arm in a soothing gesture, but was interrupted by another voice.

"Nobody is going anywhere" a commanding voice, belonging to no other than Mr. Bass, said while making his entrance in the kitchens, passing by Mr. Hudson. He walked a few steps inside the kitchens, looked around to everyone present in the scene, and then continued. "Are you still taking the trouble of arguing with them?" he said in a bored tone, while gesturing towards Mr. Hudson, Ms. Hudson and Vibiana.

"You certainly made it my problem when you didn't take the trouble of disclosing your guest list to me," the Countess snapped "and now I'm forced to share space with undesirable beings" she said, glaring Vibiana up and down. "So I need to consider leaving this place, since I was not properly informed of these arrangements, and…"

"Nobody can leave anywhere" Mr. Bass said again, in a calm tone. Behind Mr. Hudson, in the kitchens threshold, you could see Mr. Archibald and Mr. Rhodes lurking the scene. "The matter that brought us here is far more important, and dangerous, than any of our petty, or not petty" he said while giving a significant glance towards the Countess, who was going to snap at him again, but held back upon hearing his concession "rivalries and confrontations. Now, if you like" he said, looking around to everybody present in the kitchens, "we can move to the drawing-room to start the conversation that you have all been waiting for."

Everyone looked around them and to each other before silently proceeding to leave the kitchens, with Mr. Archibald and Mr. Rhodes leading the way. However, when the Countess was leaving the kitchen with Fritz in tow, Mr. Bass stopped her to have a side word with her.

"You should send Fritz away while we talk. Send him to unpack your luggage; he can go to your chambers to take care of that…"

Had the Countess not being so upset by the previous confrontation, she would have noticed that Mr. Bass's voice even reflected a hint of caring and concern while saying these words.

"You cannot order me around, tell me what to say to my butler…!" she started, but he interrupted her.

"Could you not antagonize me for five minutes?" he snapped back at her, which immediately silenced her. "This is a serious matter, Cornelia" he said, making her swallow, because during all this time he hadn't used that name. "Are you really going to let a child hear such conversation?" he said, in a less forceful tone than the one used before, it was clear he was trying to reason and plead with her.

She looked at him straight to the eyes for a minute. Could have been a minute. Could have been a hundred. None of them could tell. She finally gave him a short nod, and proceeded to leave the kitchens. He sighed, and was the last to leave the kitchens.

**A/N:** I need to point at a few things, which I debated to clarify at the beginning or at the end of the chapter but I decided to do it at the end to not spoil it.

Serena's looks didn't changed much during the show but if you need to pick a moment in particular imagine season 1 and 2 Serena, mainly because her hair looked better back then, although in 6x10 her hair looked gorgeous too.

Blair's looks are based on season 1 (part of the curls, mostly her beauty, allure, skin tone) and bits of seasons 3 and 4 (around 3x12 until the middle of season 4 the hair color was the same of season 1 and the hair volume was ideal). Season 2 wasn't bad but her hair wasn't as dark and during the first part of the season she was tanned, same when season 3 started. Season 5 hair was mainly a no-no and season 6 underperformed in several episodes.

Chuck's looks are based on seasons 3, 4 and partly 5 (although the looks of the first episodes of season 3 are to die for, this would be based on his looks from 3x10 or 3x12 onwards. 4x2 it's pretty ideal too, depending of the time period I might point out to which looks I'm inclining for). I know season 1 looks would be ideal for the current time period but I never liked those that much, sorry if that bothers somebody. His looks of the first half of season 2 are good too btw, don't know if I can use them).

Dan's looks are based on seasons 1 and 2 only, mainly because of the hair. Sorry, I cannot stand his season 5 and 6 hair in general, only certain moments. Season 3 was kinda odd from certain angles in terms of hair. Second half of season 4 was pretty good for him in hair and in general, but I don't think vampires can grow hair and in season 4 the hair was a bit longer than in seasons 1 and 2 hair, and I really need that he has seasons 1 (from around 1x5 onwards) and 2 haircuts for this story purposes.

Nate's looks are based on certain episodes of season 3 and 4 (such as, 3x4, beginning of 3x7, 3x11, 4x2, 4x6, beginning of 4x7, 4x8, 4x9, 4x10, 4x21 to name a few, even 5x1 and 5x2 work too). I love the season 1 and 2 man-bangs as much as anyone but I think the season 3 and 4 bangs are easier to keep up through several time periods and he looked as good with those as with the ones in seasons 1 and 2.

Jenny's looks are difficult because of Taylor Momsem changes in style. Try to imagine her with her current height but with the hair she would have if she had kept her natural hair color instead of going for platinum-blonde imitation. Also, the hair is not so long as she has it now, it's long but not that much.

Vanessa's looks are based in seasons 2 and 3. I haven't decided how long she should have her hair, it was longer in season 3 than in season 2, but I know many felt it was badly styled in season 3 and I think I kinda agree, sometimes it didn't look good. For the same reason I kept the curly appearance of her season 2 hair, I just try to imagine it a bit longer or if it's going to be straight, I'm going to imagine more her real-life looks because GG kinda sucked in styling her hair when it was straight.

Eric's looks are based on season 2 and 4 mostly. Season 1 hair has the problem of the blonde extensions. For some reason I kinda don't register well season 3. I think it could be season 2 for the hair, season 4 for the rest.

In case there's still any confusion:

Serena is Celia (fake name Catherine Rhodes)

Blair is Cornelia (fake name Constanze Waldorf)

Chuck has fake name Charles Bass

Dan is Decimus (fake name Randolph Hudson)

Nate has fake name Fitzwilliam Archibald

Jenny has fake name Jane Hudson

Eric is Lucius (fake name Richard Rhodes)

Vanessa is Vibiana

On the next chapter I will explain more about the real and fake names. I still need to go through several chapters before they start using the same names as our characters in the show.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N:** I forgot to say in the last A/N that the exterior of the house is just like the one the character "Mr. Bingley" rented in the "Pride & Prejudice" movie, however the interior is more like the one in the "Sense & Sensibility" movie. The drawing-room is inspired by the room where "Edward Ferras" and "Elinor Dashwood" met for the first time in the movie (with the rest of the Dashwood women, his sister, etc.) I could have used the Dashwood state but it seemed to me it was too big to manage (this story needs a manageable household), same thing with the Darcy household in "Pride & Prejudice" the movie. And the Bennett household in the "Pride & Prejudice" movie seemed a bit humble. The house rented by Mr. Bingley seemed more appropriate.

I do not own any GG or other show and stories characters; if I did the TV show would have ended better than it did.

Before the group reached the drawing-room the Countess asked Mr. Archibald and Mr. Rhodes where her chambers were, so Fritz could go and unpack her luggage. They kindly provided that information to the Countess and her young servant and with that information she sent the child in that direction, just as Mr. Bass had requested. Fritz also took with him her cloak and bonnet to save them with the rest of the luggage.

Upon reaching the drawing-room, everybody started taking their sits in it. The drawing-room's decoration was in the Neoclassic style, but it also complied with the English trend inside this style (meaning, it had everything that could be needed to look like any other drawing-room of any other English country house at the time). It had walls painted in a sort of pale blue tone, two sofas that were more Rococo than Neoclassic but still simple enough to blend with the new style, a marble fireplace, a few single chairs, candelabra not ostentatious but in enough amount to give proper lighting, and the other things necessary to complete a drawing-room in those days.

Mr. Hudson, Ms. Hudson and Vibiana occupied one of the sofas, sitting in that same order. Across them there was the other sofa which Mr. Rhodes and Ms. Rhodes proceeded to occupy as well. Mr. Archibald, Mr. Bass and the Countess opted for single chairs distributed in the rest of the space. The sofa occupied by the Hudson brothers and Vibiana occupied the space towards the left side of the fireplace, therefore the one occupied by the Rhodes brothers was on the right side. The single chair occupied by the Countess was near the fireplace and next to it followed the sofa occupied by Ms. Rhodes and her brother. After that sofa came the single chairs occupied one by Mr. Bass, the other one by Mr. Archibald, therefore they were both facing the fireplace. They were all pretty much forming a semi-circle around the fireplace because after Mr. Archibald's chair what followed was the other sofa occupied by the Hudson's and Vibiana.

Once they were all in their sits and in silence Mr. Bass proceeded to open the meeting with the following words:

"I'm sure you are all anxious to know the reason why we have requested this meeting. The threat that Numerius, Lucius, Celia and I have uncovered is dangerous enough to merit the urgency we conveyed when we contacted the rest of you, and all the help we can get."

"Alright, but you still haven't told us what this threat is about" the Countess said, not one for pleasantries or delays at that moment.

"Patience, my dear Countess" Mr. Bass said. That one earned him a glare from her. He made a small pause, and if she didn't know him better, she would have thought he was taking a breath before continuing with what he was about to say:

"A few months ago, we started hearing rumors about disturbances in the North."

"What kind of disturbances?" Mr. Hudson asked.

"The kind of disturbances that judging by their description, only our kind is capable of producing" Mr. Bass replied, and although he sounded calmed and collected as always, his eyes had a warning while he was answering to Mr. Hudson that seemed to say "don't interrupt me again". Mr. Hudson took the hint because he remained silent and said no more.

"At the beginning, they were only rumors and whispers from townsmen and from our servants," Mr. Bass continued, "but after a while, members of the higher classes were repeating them and the alarm level slowly but persistently started to increase. As per the rumors, the attacks started in the border between England and Scotland, mainly in Scotland, but as the weeks and months passed, the attacks started heading south, near and then around York, and every time a new report comes, the place is south of the area of the last attack."

"As you can imagine, we started investigating, and we requested news from others of our kind that we know live in Scotland. They have also been pursuing the issue for months, before the news started spreading south, and they were as baffled as we were. As we all know, our kind always tries to be discreet for everyone's sake, and these attackers weren't. It wasn't until a month ago that we finally got an answer."

"Which is?" the Countess asked. "And hasn't the government said anything about this?"

"From what we know, this either hasn't reached the top levels of government, or they have dismissed it as peasant's rumors, which is what we hope is happening. We do know that the local authorities are having troubles coming up with explanations about why the bodies don't have any blood, but apparently they haven't been able to get the government's ears. Besides, at this moment the government has bigger concerns, what with the issues in the Mainland and the threat of war" Mr. Bass replied.

He paused again for a few seconds, and then continued. "As for the threat…. It's him."

"Him who?" the Countess asked.

"You know who" Mr. Bass replied, locking eyes with her.

The Countess swallowed, seemed to get paler if that was even possible, and didn't say anything else.

"Wait a second, who are we talking about?" Vibiana decided to ask, confused and annoyed by such vague answer.

Nobody said anything for a few moments, Mr. Bass and the Countess still with their eyes locked, Mr. Archibald, Ms. Rhodes and Mr. Rhodes without daring to say a word, and Mr. Hudson, Ms. Hudson and Vibiana more confused than ever. Mr. Archibald was starting to consider continue the explanation when Mr. Hudson intervened.

"Are you…, are you talking about the man who turned you?" Mr. Hudson asked, incredulous.

His intervention was what finally caused Mr. Bass and the Countess to break their stare.

"Yes" Mr. Bass replied solemnly while looking at Mr. Hudson. "We are talking about him."

Mr. Hudson and company were too stunned to say anything else. So was the Countess, who couldn't take her eyes away from Mr. Bass. Ms. Rhodes couldn't do anything other than lower her head and look at her hands in her lap.

"Based on the reports we have received, he goes by the name Xavier at this moment, but he's likely to go by other aliases as well" Mr. Bass continued. "And he has an army of followers. Apparently not all the humans they have bitten were dried off," the women in the room flinched at that mention, "but some were turn instead. However he already had the main part of his followers when the attacks started."

"Excuse me," Ms. Hudson decided to intervene in that moment, "but why now? Why after all this time?"

"As you know" Mr. Bass said while looking around to include everybody, "this is not the first time he reappears. You will remember that we tried to hunt him down a while ago…"

"Yes." Ms. Hudson interrupted. "But why reappear now? What could he get from…?"

"We don't know." Mr. Bass said. "But knowing how he works, we can only expect chaos and destruction. From what we know, he might want to turn the entire human race into our kind, who knows" Mr. Bass added, looking sideways.

"As you can see, we need to stop him, and we need to work fast" Mr. Archibald said, entering the conversation. "We need to do this before the humans realize what is going on. Whatever his mad plan is, he's risking exposing us all and causing unnecessary deaths. And we don't know when he's going to stop either. As Gaius said, for all we know he could want to turn the entire human race. There is no say when and where he would want to stop. He might as well pass to the Mainland, and with enough followers he could be very difficult to control. We need to prevent him from getting more followers as well."

"We already sent word to our peers in Scotland" Mr. Bass said, "explaining who he is and what he does and can do. We are also sending word to whatever others of our kind that might be in England at the moment, though I think that will be more difficult. As you know, our kind highly values discretion. And we also requested help from the persons who know him best."

"You sent word to Rian and Moya?" the Countess asked, still stunned by everything.

Mr. Bass looked towards Mr. Rhodes, silently asking him to continue.

"It wasn't easy, but I have contacts in the Mainland" Mr. Rhodes started. "I asked them to look for Rian and Moya, and they were able to find them. As you can imagine, they were up North. And yes, they are still looking for him."

"From their brief reply, it seems they have been without a lead for a long time" Mr. Archibald continued, "which explains how he managed to get into Britain unnoticed. They will be here tomorrow night. I'm not sure yet if they will come with the others, but it's likely."

There was another pause, where everybody was too stunned, sad or worried to say anything else. Finally Mr. Hudson was the first one able to say something.

"This…, this is too much" he said, looking everywhere, itching to stand up and pace but deciding not to do so.

"Of course it is too much" the Countess suddenly said, full of energy. "We need to stop him. We need to put an end to this before is too late."

"We? He's the one that turned you" Mr. Hudson said, looking towards the Countess, Mr. Bass, Mr. Archibald and Ms. Rhodes. "Can't you just…?"

"Decimus, please" Ms. Rhodes looked up from her lap and effectively interrupted him, with a pleading tone. They locked eyes for a moment before he put his face in his hands, sitting with his elbows over his knees. He remained like that for a moment and he finally looked up and said:

"Alright, I will help you. Helvetia," he said, addressing his sister, "if you want, you can return to the Mainland, or you can…"

"I'm in." Ms. Hudson said, effectively cutting him off. "I will help too."

"Are you sure?" Mr. Hudson asked, still a bit apprehensive. "I mean, you don't have to if you don't want to. I… We can arrange…"

"I said I will help too." Ms. Hudson said cutting him off again. "Decimus, I know you're worried," she said, turning towards her brother and trying to soothe him, "and I get it, I do. But I'm capable of defending myself, and I can fight as well as any of you. You don't have to worry about me. You know that I have lived alone in the past, and here I am. And I'll be careful, just like everybody else will be careful."

Another silent moment passed, and Mr. Archibald decided to ask the only person that was pending to give her consent.

"Vibiana?" he said, addressing her.

"I'm in" she answered. "Whoever this guy is, I agree he needs to stop. As much as we all want to survive and are willing to defend ourselves in case of a threat, I think we can agree that neither one of us desires to create more of our kind. There are enough people of our kind in the world, and some nut can't go around deciding whether the world needs more of our kind or not."

"You would know whether someone should decide how many more of our kind the world needs, wouldn't you?" the Countess said with a cool demeanor, addressing Vibiana.

"Alright," Mr. Bass said, cutting off the discussion that was sure to start if he didn't put an end to it. "This is the plan for the night then. We need to go to eat. We have horses in the stables for everybody and today we can go to the nearest town. Numerius and I can lead the way and Celia and Lucius can go at the end watching that everything is in order and nobody get lost. Cornelia's things need to get installed in her chamber, I assume Fritz can continue with that while we are out?" he asked, addressing the Countess, to which she was only able to absent with her head, still too impressed by everything. "Good. I assume everyone else has already occupied their chambers?" he asked, addressing Mr. Archibald.

"Everybody has unpacked already, and we also have rooms ready for our visitors tomorrow." Mr. Archibald replied.

"Very well then. When we return from our meal, we can continue strategizing and planning what we are going to do while Rian and Moya arrive."

"As for what happens in the daylight, the movement in this house is quite simple. We do sleep in the upper rooms, but we don't sleep in the same rooms every day. The servants arrive during the early hours of the morning and as far as they know, we already left the house for the day, and we don't return until sunset. Every morning I leave written instructions to our administrator with a list saying which rooms the servants can clean up and which tasks they need to complete. The servants cannot enter the rooms excluded from that list and we have bolts behind the rooms as a precaution if someone gets confused and tries to open one of the forbidden rooms. We sleep in the rooms excluded from the list for a night or two and then we switch to the ones already cleaned up and we sleep in those while the servants clean the ones we already used. Usually what we do is that we occupy rooms in the second floor for a week and then we move to the rooms in the third floor the following week, and so on."

"The servants believe we take breakfast, lunch and dinner in the places or towns we go visit during the day. The rooms have secret doors and connect by internal corridors that also lead to the stables. What we do is that before sunrise we go to the stables, move a carriage to a secret site near the house but not visible by the public, and we left the carriage's horses there with enough food and water for the day. It is also dark enough so they can sleep. After sunset we go back to the secret site, return in the carriage, reach the front of the house and leave the servants take the carriage to the stables before they leave for the day. The servants also don't know that we switch rooms, so any laundry is left always in what they believe are our rooms so they can take care of it during the day. They also take care of the main rooms and the property around the house. Since we don't eat here, the human food in the house is mainly for their use although we have made them believe that we might eat breakfast or dinner here at some point. Any question?" Mr. Bass asked the others.

The visitors felt too stunned to ask anything else, and the inhabitants of the house felt they didn't have anything else to add to such explanation.

"Oh, and we have thick curtains in the bedrooms that prevent daylight from coming in, so you don't have to worry about that" Mr. Bass remembered to add.

"You knew that we would have to occupy more than one bedroom and yet you told me about unpacking in one of them…" the Countess started saying.

"Don't worry, we will tell you in advance when you have to move from one room to another and you will be able to take your things with you" Mr. Bass said to calm her. "Besides, I wouldn't worry about it too much. It won't be long before we have to travel again, this time up North, so you won't have to spend too much time here. Once Rian and Moya arrive, we will know when we will have to leave. Anything else?" Mr. Bass asked.

Everyone remained silent. Mr. Bass then remembered another thing.

"There is still the issue of our names here. I believe you all know by now that I go by Mr. Charles Bass."

"And that I go by Mr. Fitzwilliam Archibald" Mr. Archibald said.

"I think you also know that Celia is Ms. Catherine Rhodes and that Lucius is her brother, Mr. Richard Rhodes."

Everyone nodded at that, and Ms. Hudson exchanged a small smile with Mr. Rhodes.

"I believe you all also know by now that Cornelia is the Countess Constanze Waldorf. Are you going to stay as Countess here?" Mr. Bass asked the Countess.

"I've thought about it and yes, I wish to stay as Countess" she replied.

"Very well then. We will say that you are visiting from Germany and that your family has an old friendship with ours. You must know," he said, addressing everybody, "that here we have said that Celia and Lucius are my cousins from my mother's side, but they were left orphans at a very young age and that they grew up with me as my brothers, and that Numerius is a friend from my college days that is paying a lengthy visit and he's also considering buying a property nearby." After another brief pause, Mr. Bass continued:

"I think we all also know that Decimus and his sister are going by Mr. Randolph Hudson and his sister, Ms. Jane Hudson. What are we supposed to say that you do for a living, Decimus?" he asked dismissively, addressing Mr. Hudson.

"I think you can all say that I'm Numerius's secretary" Mr. Hudson said with a sigh. He was already accustomed to Mr. Bass treatment. "Or even attorney. That has come here to help Mr. Archibald in the search of a property, or start drawing the papers for the one he has chosen. And that I travel everywhere with my sister because she has no one else and we are orphans too."

"You don't have to say that you work for me…" Mr. Archibald started rather sheepishly.

"And what else are we going to say? That we went to college together? Who else is going to believe that?" Upon hearing this Mr. Bass snorted, and the Countess scrunched up her nose in disgust. "Exactly" Mr. Hudson said upon hearing and watching Mr. Bass and the Countess, while gesturing to them.

"We are going to say that you are Mr. Archibald's attorney, that has come here to help him decide which property he's going to buy" Mr. Bass said to close the issue. There was only one thing left. "And… her?" he asked, gesturing towards Vibiana.

"I'm Vivian Parker" she said, with her head held high. "That's my name here, Vivian Parker. And you can say I'm their servant girl" she said, while gesturing towards the Hudson brothers.

"We don't have to say that, we can say that you are my friend…" Ms. Hudson started saying.

"And who is going to believe that?" Vibiana replied, using Mr. Hudson's words from a moment ago. "It's easier for all to say that I'm a servant girl who also works as your chaperone. You could also say that I'm your personal maid, I wouldn't mind, but that would be riskier if you are only the sister of a lawyer. There is also always the other choice."

"What other choice?" Mr. Hudson asked.

"You could also say that she's your personal slave." Mr. Bass said taking the hint of what Vibiana was trying to say. Mr. Hudson immediately started denying with his head. "You could say that you acquired her from the Americas, that a family member sent her to you…"

"No" was Mr. Hudson reply, cutting off everyone else. "No. I won't say that. I won't say she's my slave. I'm an abolitionist, and there is no way I'm going to say that I have a slave."

They all observed him for a few moments and Mr. Bass finally said: "It's settled then. Vibiana goes by Vivian Parker and she's the Hudson's maid. If anyone asks, however, you will have to say that either she or her parents emancipated" Mr. Bass concluded in a serious tone, while looking at Mr. Hudson directly.

"Fine" Mr. Hudson said, not entirely too pleased, but he knew Mr. Bass was right.

Nobody said anything else. Mr. Bass exchanged a look with Mr. Archibald and then they proceeded to stand, which caused everybody else to stand at the same time.

"Right. Let's allow time to Cornelia to install in her chambers and let's meet again here in an hour to go to the town for our meal."

"Come Cornelia, let me show you to your chambers" Ms. Rhodes said, and she started lacing arms with the Countess when Mr. Bass interrupted.

"If you don't mind, sister" Mr. Bass drawled, "I wish to show Cornelia her chambers."

"Well, I do happen to mind" the Countess replied, taking a step towards Mr. Bass while disentangling herself from Ms. Rhodes. "I'm sure Celia is perfectly capable of showing me my chambers and I certainly don't want you anywhere near them."

"Oh? But it's such a pity, my dear Countess" Mr. Bass said to tease her. "I know the house as well as my dear sister and we do have some issues that we need to discuss. I do remember very well how fun your chambers used to..."

"Come on all, that's enough" Ms. Rhodes interrupted. She knew that she was the only one capable of stopping all this. She was aware that her brother and Mr. Archibald refused to intervene in this matter, and that rest were too shocked, to tired or too annoyed by the entire thing to say a word that would cut if off. "Cornelia and I are going to her chambers, and you can tag along if you must. But that's about it" she said, standing up to Mr. Bass, while lacing arms again with the Countess.

"Fine then" Mr. Bass said with an eye roll and a sigh. He knew he couldn't win against both women. And he really believed there would be a couple of issues that the Countess would want to ask him once she reached her chambers.

"Then we will meet here again in an hour" Mr. Archibald said, and they all nodded their consent. Then they all proceeded to bow at the same time, as per the custom of the time, and started leaving the drawing-room by different exits and with different directions.

Ms. Rhodes and the Countess took the route that would take them to the grand staircase that lead to the upper floors where the bedrooms were, and Mr. Bass accompanied them too. Ms. Rhodes would have engaged in small talk with the Countess, but knowing that with Mr. Bass near her friend would no longer be in the mood for that for fear of revealing too much, she abstained of saying anything. Therefore the three of them remained silent until they reached the chambers assigned to the Countess.

Just before Ms. Rhodes was able to open the chamber's door, the Countess got ahead of her and gave a knock to the door while saying aloud in German: "Fritz, it's me, I'm going in."

Mr. Bass rolled his eyes to her behavior. He knew perfectly well that this was a secret signal between them to alert the child that she was not alone and there shouldn't be valuables on display.

Naturally Ms. Rhodes got a little startled and gave a funny look to the Countess, not getting what was all that about, but before she could consider again try to open the door, it got open from the inside and there stood Fritz, who did a bow to everyone and then stepped aside so they could come in.

The Countess entered the room first with Ms. Rhodes and Mr. Bass behind her, all the while examining the room. She found it satisfactory and above her standards, not that she was going to say that to Mr. Bass. It did had a grand canopy bed with beautiful linen, a grand marble fireplace that was already heated, a big wood closet with a rich decoration work, a small set of single chairs with a tea-table in the middle that were near the fireplace, a bathroom set and the thick curtains that Mr. Bass had described, which at that moment were not concealing the beautiful French windows.

"Do you like it?" Ms. Rhodes asked the Countess, gushing again since she was regaining the mood she had before the meeting. "I picked it up myself" she said, referring to the room.

This forced the Countess to having to say out loud her appraisal of the room.

"It's… It's beautiful Celia" she answered, hesitating for a second in one last-minute attempt to give a downplayed reply, but unable to do so because she didn't want to upset or sadden her friend.

Ms. Rhodes squealed and ran to hug the Countess, while Mr. Bass smirked and look at the floor for a moment. He knew what she would have liked to say due to his presence in the room, and he also knew why she couldn't do it at the end. It was always good to see Cornelia and Celia together.

Once the two friends disentangled from the hug, the Countess continue to look at everything while holding both of her friend's hands. The paintings in the ceiling, the candelabra, the mirror above the fireplace and in the dressing table… Suddenly she remembered a very important issue.

"Where is Fritz going to sleep?" she asked, and without thinking she addressed Mr. Bass instead of her friend when saying the question.

Mr. Bass, who was reclining in the doorway with his hands in his pockets, immediately straightened himself up and started walking slowly towards them. He was expecting her questions.

"Well, I imagine you wouldn't want our servants to notice him, so even if we originally considered giving him a room in the servant's quarters, I guess we can disregard that idea" he said, with his right hand inside his pocket while gesturing with his left hand.

The Countess nodded with her head. Without realizing she had lowered her walls and her doe-eyes showed vulnerability, because she was a bit anxious. It made him want to soothe her and dispel her fears. Although he liked to tease her, and he wanted her back, he didn't want her to be upset.

"We could give him a chamber next to yours. There is no one next door, so if you want we could prepare one of those for him" Mr. Bass said.

"I don't know… I don't want him to feel alone in such a big room. He could always sleep here, but I've never been in favor of humans sleeping in the same room as our kind. You never know when that could be dangerous for the human" she said, while gesturing Fritz to come near them. Once he arrived, she put her left arm over his shoulders, giving him a sideways hug.

"We could always switch the room, and give them connected rooms" Ms. Rhodes said.

"You have connected rooms?" the Countess asked Mr. Bass and Ms. Rhodes.

"Well yes, my dear Countess" Mr. Bass said playfully. "You will remember that this house was originally built by humans. The nuptial chambers connect by a communication door for the Master and Mistress of the house, and some of the visitors chambers also have communication doors, for whatever married couples that would come to visit."

She gave him a glare for that one, but eventually sighed and looked at the child, while saying: "I don't know…"

"I'll tell you what" Mr. Bass said, "why don't you let him sleep next door for tonight? I'm sure that if you explain him the situation he will be able to sleep alone in the room. And tomorrow you can both switch to a set of visitor's chambers connected by a communication door. Unless you want the nuptial chambers?" he said at the end to tease her.

That one earned him another glare, and Ms. Rhodes decided to intervene before they started to argue, knowing that her friend was going to accept the idea (sans nuptial chambers of course).

"This whole thing reminded me, how are we going to explain to the servants that Vibiana is a servant but they don't see her?"

"There is nothing to explain" Mr. Bass said. "Vibiana is Helvetia's servant and she has to go with her everywhere she goes, so she's out of the house at the same time her mistress is out of the house. The same thing about Fritz, he goes wherever Cornelia goes. If anyone asks that's what will tell them. But if it makes you feel better" he said to soothe Ms. Rhodes, "we can tell the others about this."

"I think it would be the best" Ms. Rhodes said.

"This also reminded me" the Countess started, "where is the secret door to the hidden corridors? And do these corridors really connect all the rooms?"

"Let me show you" Mr. Bass said, and going towards a wooden-paneled wall, he proceeded to show everybody where the hidden door was and how to open it. The Countess and Fritz took a peek at the corridor. "The rooms that we use are the ones connected by the corridors. We don't use the few rooms that don't have this connection. This network of corridors was actually started by the previous owners of the house, following the nobility's customs I presume. We just expanded it as much as we could and connected it to the stables. And don't worry, these doors have locks too, so nobody can enter from the corridor either" he said, adding this last part with a playful smirk because he knew that getting that information was the hidden intention behind her question. She wanted to know if there was a chance that he would try to enter her chamber from the corridor.

Naturally the Countess figured out that he had discovered her ploy to get that information, so she continued with another question.

"And what about the moment we need to move to another room? My things were unpack here. How are we going to…?"

"You don't have to unpack all your things at once if you don't want to" Mr. Bass interrupted her, "I believe we say we would leave Fritz unpacking your things while we went for a meal. You can leave part of your things in their trunks, locked with key, and when the time comes I'm sure the others will gladly help you move things from one room to another, since I'm sure you won't want my help" he said, with a rather serious tone at the end.

The Countess remained silent for a moment, contemplating his answer, and finally she said. "Fine, we will do that for now."

"Besides," Mr. Bass added "if you remember it won't be long until we need to travel again."

"Of course" the Countess replied rather tightly.

"Alright, I think it has been enough conversation for now" Ms. Rhodes decided to intervene at that moment. "Cornelia needs to freshen up from her journey and I'm sure she will want to leave instructions for Fritz."

"I'm going to need food for him so he can also eat while we are out" the Countess said.

"Don't worry, like I said there's human food in the house for the servant's use and because we have made them believe that we might eat here at some point" Mr. Bass replied.

"He's also going to need candles to move around the house, or at least know where the candelabra are in any room…"

"The house is properly illuminated, but we can tell him those things anyways. You can arrange that and any other details with Celia. She also has the keys for the locks of the bedroom door and the secret door; you can ask those to her."

"Really? How do I know you don't have a secret copy?" the Countess asked.

"Believe me, I don't. Otherwise Celia would kill me" Mr. Bass said while turning around to leave the room.

"You are right that I would" Ms. Rhodes called out to him. Upon hearing her Mr. Bass turned around, now in the threshold of the bedroom's door, and with a smirk he bowed his goodbye, leaving the women and Fritz alone in the room.

"Finally" sighed Ms. Rhodes while going to close the door. "I thought he would never go."

"Sorry my love" the Countess said in German to Fritz while giving him another sideways hug with her left arm, which she had stopped doing during her conversation with Mr. Bass, not that the child had left her side for one second "I didn't mean to left you out, but I needed to ask some things and it was easier in English" she said, while passing her hand through his hair.

Given than Ms. Rhodes was still in the room, Fritz was too shy in that moment to do other thing than nod with his head.

"Don't worry sweetie" Ms. Rhodes said in German walking towards him, taking him by his hand and walking a few steps with him to finally sit on one side of the bed "now that we are alone we can talk in German. Don't be frightened, I'm your mistress's friend. She and I go a long time ago" she said, while passing her right hand by the boy's left cheek.

The Countess rolled her eyes and started walking towards them. "Dear Celia, do you really think I wouldn't have told him that and where we were going?" she said in German, while sitting at Fritz's other side and putting her left arm over his shoulders. Ms. Rhodes just shrugged her shoulder while passing her right hand through the boy's hairs.

"Listen Fritz," the Countess started in German, now giving him another sideways hug, "the movement in this house is different from our home. They have servants here that don't know anything of what is actually going on. It's better if they don't see you. Therefore we are going to need another chamber for you, so you won't stay in the servant's quarters. Also, we are going to make sure that your room is always next to mine. Due to the servant's presence, the habitants of his house change rooms every day or two, and we will have to do the same. Therefore we will sleep in rooms with a communication door, but since that was not planned before tonight, for tonight you will sleep next door but there isn't going to be a communication door, although your room will also have a secret door towards the corridor, and you will get the keys for that door and the main door in your room, like I will have for this room. Right Celia?" the Countess said addressing her friend.

"Right," Ms. Rhodes replied "and for all the rooms you occupy."

"I know that for tonight you could share this room with me, but you know that is better if you don't sleep in the same room that I do" the Countess said.

"Yes Milady" the boy said. The Countess kissed his head.

"Good boy. Now, since we are going to move from one room to another, you won't have to unpack all our trunks. Just finish the ones you started and don't open the rest. And don't worry, I've been told that we will receive help to move all the trunks every time we need to move" she said, while giving a wink to her friend, who just giggled.

"Yes Milady" Fritz said again

"Good boy. Now go finish unpacking while I talk with Ms. Rhodes. In a while we will go downstairs to prepare your meal, and while you eat we will go to eat too. After I return we will try to study something, not much because you are surely tired. But we do need to keep practicing your English. We are going to stay here for a while" the Countess sighed at the end.

"Yes Milady" Fritz said in English while standing up.

"Oh Cornelia, he's so cute!" Ms. Rhodes gushed again. Placing both her hands in the child's cheeks, she continued gushing. "You are so cute!" The minute she heard him talking in English, she forgot all about German and started speaking in English herself.

"Do forgive my friend, Fritz" the Countess said, "she tends to do that a lot." And with that she gently placed her hands in the boy's shoulder and managed to take him out of Ms. Rhodes's hands and send him towards the trunks.

"I'm sorry," Ms. Rhodes said bashfully "it's just that's been a while since I've been near a small child and…"

"It's fine, I get it" the Countess said. To change subjects the Countess said:

"Now, tell me all about England, and I will tell you about France and Germany."

Ms. Rhodes smiled, and they started talking while Fritz continued to unpack the trunks.

**A/N:** It wasn't my intention to finish the chapter here, but it was longer than expected, I didn't know there were so many details to consider while writing a fanfic.

To further clarify:

Serena is Celia (fake name Catherine Rhodes)

Blair is Cornelia (fake name Constanze Waldorf)

Chuck is Gaius (fake name Charles Bass)

Dan is Decimus (fake name Randolph Hudson)

Nate is Numerius (fake name Fitzwilliam Archibald)

Jenny is Helvetia (fake name Jane Hudson)

Eric is Lucius (fake name Richard Rhodes)

Vanessa is Vibiana (fake name Vivan Parker)

For now all I can say about the real names is that there is story behind them and they are only their first names, but I won't get into that until later in this fanfic. This is also part of the reason I keep referring to them with their fake names. There are other reasons that I will explain along the way. Also, I will try to update soon, it hasn't been easy lately because of life and work, in fact I'm posting this while on vacation and I will try to get something before vacation finish but I can't promise anything, fingers crossed I will make it.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N:** Before saying anything else, I need to thank all the readers that have reviewed or chose this story as a Favorite. I don't remember but I'm pretty sure that I didn't reply to the first reviews that I received, I didn't know how to reply and I'm still not sure how to reply (by PM maybe?) so I apologize if the readers felt neglected. For the readers that don't review, no worries, at the end I just want to thank the readers who take time to read this story.

In this chapter, I started referring to Vibiana (Vanessa) as Vivian, to keep continuity with the other characters, which I always mention as Ms. Rhodes, Mr. Bass, the Countess, etc.

I do not own any GG or other show and stories characters; if I did the TV show would have ended better than it did.

"…and, I know he clearly wasn't well, but I couldn't help but feel sorry for him. He didn't seem like a bad person and during his illness it was obvious he wasn't able to rule, but it seemed to me that they were trying to impose Regency with haste. I mean, nothing against his son, his personal life is his business, but most people prefer the father over the son and the son has given proof that he doesn't have the same disposition as his father, whose disposition always pleased the people. Luckily he's well now, but the last attack of his disease was just last year, so who knows how long his current health will last" Ms. Rhodes finished saying to the Countess while they reached the drawing-room to meet with the others.

By that moment Ms. Rhodes had already given the Countess and Fritz the rooms keys, Fritz had already unpacked the things that the Countess was going to use during her stay in her chamber, and both women had made sure to install Fritz in one of the rooms immediately next to the one occupied by the Countess, which instructions of unpacking only what he was going to need to spend the night there, a task he should do while the adults were out. They also had time to show Fritz the kitchens and where was the food that he could use to prepare himself dinner.

In the kitchen they had found Ms. Hudson finishing her sowing, a while after she finished with that task she excused herself to go to her chambers and put on the garments she was going to use for the trip to town. This reminded Ms. Rhodes and the Countess that they needed to do the same, so they went to the chambers to do this before going to the drawing-room. Like at home, the Countess made sure to lock her chamber with key every time she was in and out of it, and she had instructed Fritz to do the same. By now Ms. Rhodes had also been made aware of this as well as of the Countess's behavior when they first went to her chamber with Mr. Bass in toe.

Once Ms. Rhodes and the Countess reached the drawing-room they found everyone else there already dressed for travel.

"Well, I see nobody wanted to wait to reach the stables before putting on traveling clothes" Mr. Bass observed.

"As soon as we finish with this the better, right?" Mr. Hudson said, while checking the bottoms of his coat.

"Alright, follow me" Mr. Archibald said, and he started to lead the way to the stables.

As in the Countess's house, before reaching the stables they had to go through the kitchens. While passing through them the Countess told Fritz in German:

"Goodbye Fritz, we'll be back soon. Remember what I told you."

"You should introduce him to everybody" Mr. Bass told her in a low voice while they continued walking towards the stables.

The Countess gave him a look between annoyed and a glare. She knew Mr. Bass was right, but didn't want him constantly on her case. It wasn't her intention not to introduce her young servant to her peers, but with all the whirlwind of their arrival she hadn't been able to finish introducing him to all of them. Finally she said: "Fine. I will do it when we return from town."

They finally reached the stables. There Mr. Archibald showed them the horses and which ones were available to the visitors, since the owners of the house already have their preferred horses. Without further delay they all proceeded to climb on the horses and ride to the nearest town.

The group dismounted from the horses once they reached the outskirts of the town. They also left the horses under the shadow of a group of trees. Before going into town Mr. Archibald said the following:

"Alright this is the deal. We are going near the town's tavern. We can either lurk it until a drunken lowlife comes out of it, or we can send one or two of the girls there to lure one of them out."

"But it is going to take too much time if we just wait for someone to come out" Mr. Hudson reasoned.

"So, are you saying that you believe we should send one of the girls there? And if so who will go?" Mr. Archibald asked.

"I can go" Vivian offered.

"No, I want to go too. Celia can go with me" the Countess replied. "I want to see how you usually do this" she added, since everybody stared at her for a second.

"We are plenty of people. We are going to need more than one person. Why don't we try both methods?" Mr. Bass said. "Cornelia can go with Celia first and afterwards we can wait for a while to see if anyone else goes out, and if the wait prolongs itself too much we can send Vibiana to lure someone else."

Everyone else agreed with their heads, even Vivian, all silently accepting Mr. Bass idea, and afterwards their started walking to town.

They managed to reach the back of the tavern unnoticed. Once there, everybody except the Countess and Ms. Rhodes climbed the external walls until reaching the rooftop. They lay down on their stomachs while observing the area near the tavern from their newly high positions. They settled to focus mostly in the street in front of the tavern and on a narrow street at the right side of the tavern. Mr. Rhodes decided to also keep an eye on the area around the back of the tavern from time to time.

Meanwhile, the Countess and Ms. Rhodes got ready to go into the tavern. They had opted for using capes with hoods for this trip to town, though less ostentatious than the one used by the Countess the first night she received her visitors in Germany. They decided to use these clothes based on the fact that they were a more manageable article of clothing. Also, they chose capes with toned-down colors; Ms. Rhode's a pearl gray, the Countess a sort of sky-blue. Ms. Rhodes was also not wearing the white dress that she had when her friend had arrived; instead she had changed to a dress that also had a gray tone, slightly darker than her hood, with a gold ribbon around her waist. It was clearly a dress for the night, since it didn't have long sleeves unlike the Countess dress and the cleavage was a bit more pronounced. She had obviously come ready for something like this.

"Ready?" Ms. Rhodes asked the Countess, and upon seeing her nod her agreement, both women headed towards the tavern's front entrance.

Ms. Rhodes clearly was going for the kill, because once inside she immediately pushed back her hood and began to untie the cape while going to the innkeeper, while the Countess keep the hood over her head and even lowered it more to hide her face as much as possible. She also lowered her face and walked to the most shadowed table she could find, sitting at the empty table without a word. This was the type of routine that both friends knew to perfection. Without a word they have been able to communicate and agree how they were going to work this issue. While Ms. Rhodes performed all the job of luring the chosen target, the Countess was there to watch and support if it was necessary.

"Excuse me" Ms. Rhodes said to the innkeeper with her most charming attitude, "but my friend and I just arrived to the town today" she said, gesturing towards the table where the Countess sat. "We are just passing by, but the place where we are staying is simply dreadful. Do you think you can recommend us someplace else? Maybe we could stay here. And also, do you think you could bring us something to eat and drink? I swear this place where we are staying has the most dreadful service." By that moment Ms. Rhodes no longer had the cape around her shoulders and her outfit was fully visible to the view of anyone who laid eyes on her.

"Of course Miss" the innkeeper said, already charmed by her. "Unfortunately we don't have quarters for you and your friend to spend the night, but I can ask around. In the meantime I will bring you something to eat. Are you and your friend traveling alone?"

"Not too much to eat please, I think the food in our inn has made me lost my appetite" Ms. Rhodes said, while gesturing with her hands and slightly gracing the innkeepers left arm, unbeknown to him but totally on purpose from her part, to further charm him. "And yes we are traveling alone; it's the most unfortunate thing, really…" and she continued talking and giggling while giving a fake story of why this was so.

The idea wasn't to charm the innkeeper to lure him out, just to charm him enough so he would let them sit there without too many questions. The other big part of the act was to attract attention from the other men in the room. And the Countess was actually surreptitiously observing and studying the environment surrounding her.

Ms. Rhodes joined the Countess when she finally finished charming the innkeeper. By then she had already attracted attention from several men in that room, and the story she had told was purposely fake enough to make some of them think that the two women were more than they appeared.

"May I join the two ladies?" a man with a rather sleazy appearance said when he approached their table after the innkeeper brought them drinks and food. Drinks that they were only pretending to drink.

"You may join us, if you like" Ms. Rhodes said with a flirtatious smile.

The man sat next to Ms. Rhodes. The Countess remained silent, like the man had not been there at all.

"What's your name?" the man asked Ms. Rhodes, looking directly to her eyes, unconsciously leaning towards her.

"Lucy" Ms. Rhodes said, still smiling, clearly flirting with him. "What's yours?" she asked in return.

"Peter" he answered. He then glanced towards the Countess and asked Ms. Rhodes "And your friend?"

"Oh, that's Christine" Ms. Rhodes replied "but she doesn't say much. She's shy."

"Really?" the man asked. "And you?" he said, still looking at her inappropriately, glancing briefly to her cleavage.

"Oh, I think we can say that I'm not shy" Ms. Rhodes said. She began to sit more close to him than what decorum permitted.

"What are you ladies doing here alone?" the man asked.

"It's an unfortunate situation, really" Ms. Rhodes began again "we couldn't stay in the last place we were living."

"Oh really?" the man said, convincing himself more that his suspicions about the two women were correct.

"Yes, really, the situation became quite dire" Ms. Rhodes continued. "It simply wasn't a suitable place to live anymore."

"How unfortunate" the man commented, also leaning himself more towards Ms. Rhodes, eyeing her cleavage more.

"They don't know how to treat two ladies" Ms. Rhodes said, while making the act of drinking, which she actually wasn't. The Countess had also kept the façade, all the while looking at the distance.

"What did they do?" the man asked. By this point it was becoming clear he was lusting after Ms. Rhodes.

"They treated us horribly, calling us names, implying that our presence was undesirable" Ms. Rhodes said, all dramatics. "All because we clearly have other ideas about what's suitable for young women like us" she added.

This increased her interlocutor's attention.

"Really? What sort of ideas?"

"But no, good sir" Ms. Rhodes said, all flirtation, while doing the act again of drinking a large amount of her drink. This time she did had to swallow a little to keep the illusion real. "You cannot ask me to tell you that. We just arrived to this town and we are just passing by. I cannot risk having us expelled from here when we haven't even been able to have a good night sleep."

"Such a beautiful woman like you shouldn't have to hide from others" the man said huskily, while leaning his face so close to hers that it looked like it could grace or nuzzle her face at any moment.

Ms. Rhodes laughed and swayed a little in her chair, pretending that she started getting slightly drunk.

"And what you would have us do, good sir? We had no other choice but to leave, to avoid facing the wrath of that people. We are two women alone, without anyone else in the world. Luckily for us, an old acquaintance offered to stay with her."

"It's that so?" the man said. "And you have no other choice but to live with that woman?"

Ms. Rhodes pretended to drink again, and then said: "no other choice I can think of. And our friend is being very generous with us, since she is already in charge of other people. Of course if the opportunity presented itself, I could be persuaded otherwise" she said coyly, while looking at him from under her lashes.

"Perhaps I could persuade you otherwise" the man husked, so enraptured by her that he haven't even been drinking much, but it that moment he raised the cup to his lips. When he was going to put it down on the table, however, Ms. Rhodes raised her left hand to stop him, placing it over the hand he was holding the cup with, and guiding the cup towards her lips.

"Perhaps you could" she whispered, and she brought the edge of the cup to her lips, gracing said edge with them, moving her lips side to side while continue gracing the edge of the cup with them for a few seconds before finally bringing down the cup to the table, all the while his hand still wrapped around the cup. She also placed her right hand over his left thigh; luckily their closeness was able to hide that from afar.

To say Peter was incredibly turned on was an understatement.

"I could offer you protection, you know, for you and your friend" he started, "but you would have to give me something in exchange."

"Money?" Ms. Rhodes asked, looking like she was bristling a little.

"No, not money" the man said, practically laughing at the idea. Ms. Rhodes seemed to calm herself after hearing that.

"Good, because we don't have much, only enough to reach our destination" she huffed. "With the hurry those scoundrels put us through, we had to spend much of what we had earned to get out of there safely" she said, while pretending to drink again, to make it look like she was saying more than she should because of drunkenness.

"I was thinking another way in which you girls could repay me" he said, while trying to place his left arm around her waist.

"I think I know exactly what you mean" Ms. Rhodes whispered, while moving her right hand up on his thigh.

"I think we need to continue this conversation somewhere else" the man cleared his throat, while proceeding to stand up immediately. Ms. Rhodes also stood up. "You should bring your friend too" he said, while eyeing the Countess. Now that he was seeing her from above, he could tell this girl was also beautiful, even if she was hidden in shadows. "She should have a say in our deal as well."

"Oh yes, she should have" Ms. Rhodes said, flirting again, "although I can assure you, she will have the same opinion than I have". She was picking up her cape while saying the latter thing, and she immediately started walking, but she didn't advance much before pretending to sway a little.

"Hu-huh, watch your step" the man said while taking her from her elbows. Once she was standing on her feet, she laughed freely, like she didn't have a care in the world. Meanwhile the Countess had stood up too and was following them, so when the man glanced back to see if she was coming with them, she was just a few steps behind.

"Miss, miss" the innkeeper came towards them, and he started talking before anyone could stop him, "I asked our other clients but I couldn't find you anywhere else to stay. Perhaps you could…" he said, while frowning to the man accompanying her."

"Excuse us" the Countess intervened, taking the innkeeper to the side while Ms. Rhodes kept talking nonsense to Peter, "but we were able to find a place to stay. That man" she said, briefly signaling to Peter's back, "knows an old maid that has a spare room. He's going to escort us there now. Thank you for your service" she continued, while placing money on his hands, "and for the food. It was delicious. It's a pity we cannot stay more" she finished, and with those words she turned around and followed Ms. Rhodes and Peter outside the tavern. Peter already had his left arm around Ms. Rhode's waist, clearly an inappropriate behavior between an unmarried man and woman.

By the time they reached the street, it was already pretty empty, and the few people around seemed drunk or minding their own business. Upon reaching the street, the Countess started walking next to Peter instead of behind him, to his right while Ms. Rhodes continued at his left. Seeing the other girl next to him, Peter also placed his right hand around her waist. Ms. Rhodes giggled tipsy. What he didn't know was that was all an act.

"Aren't you a pretty one?" He mused while looking at the Countess, who in turn looked at him and gave him a smile, flirtatious in appearance although more haughty than Ms. Rhodes.

"I feel like we are going to have a lot of fun tonight" he said. Without realizing it, both women had made their small group turn around the tavern's right corner, entering the side street next to the establishment.

"And more" the Countess said flirtatious, while raising her right hand and ghostly caressing the front of his jacket with the tip of her fingers, from his chest to his waist.

Peter laughed, mentally preparing himself for the night he was going to have with the two women. "She speaks!" he laughed, causing both women to laugh as well.

Suddenly Ms. Rhodes stopped, and while still pretending to sway a little, she said to him: "Come on darling. Give me a kiss."

She was laughing, while placing her left hand on his right cheek to bring his face closer to hers. Meanwhile the Countess placed her right arm on the front of his body, with her forearm slightly crossed across part of his chest and her right hand over his right shoulder, in a way that for any observer it would look like she was holding him to prevent him from falling drunk on his face, more so because she also had her left arm around his waist.

Just when his lips were about to touch Ms. Rhodes's lips, she made a quick movement and brought her face to his neck's left side, effectively biting him. Before he could register what was happening, the Countess had made another sudden movement to move her right hand from his shoulder to the front of his neck and while holding him this way, she bit him on the right side of his neck. He couldn't even scream, just an "Oh" escaping his lips.

Being effectively held and dominated by both women, their started to slowly bring him down to the ground, while crouching besides him and effectively drinking his blood, since they didn't let go of his neck one second. Meanwhile, the others, that were watching the last scene from above the tavern's rooftop, started to quickly descend to the ground directly from the rooftop, with incredible jumps from there. Mr. Hudson and Ms. Hudson each quickly took a wrist and shoving upwards, and even tearing the sleeves of Peter's jacket and shirt, they began to drink from his wrists, she from the right one and he from the left one. Mr. Bass and Mr. Archibald went for his ankles, right and left ones respectively, effectively removing the shoes and other garments in their way. Mr. Rhodes and Vivian had it more difficult, because all the good places were already taken. Mr. Rhodes decided to crouch down next to Ms. Hudson and tearing the sleeves more he began to drink from the arm. Vivian tried to do the same crouching down next to Mr. Hudson, but seeing she wasn't going to get much blood there, she switched places and crouched down next to Mr. Archibald, effectively tearing up the trousers on the area of the right thigh and starting drinking from there.

"Dammit" Vivian said sitting up after a while, "he doesn't have any more blood there." You could still see her fangs while she was saying this.

Mr. Rhodes also stopped drinking and sat up, while trying to wipe out his mouth with his hand.

"He's not enough to feed us all. We have to get another one" Mr. Bass said, sitting up. The rest started to sit up as well. Ms. Rhodes and the Countess were the last ones to finish.

"Of course he's not enough, since you drank a lot from him by the time we arrived" Vivian said accusing the Countess and Ms. Rhodes.

"Excuse me, but what would you have us to do?" Ms. Rhodes said defending herself. "Keep him ready so you could come and drink up while he tried to scream for help?"

"Enough, it's not worth fighting for. We all knew that we would need more than one" Mr. Bass said standing up, which forced the rest to stand up as well.

"He's dry, right?" Mr. Bass asked, while the Countess and Ms. Rhodes nodded with their heads in answer.

"What are we going to do with the body?" Mr. Rhodes said. "Maybe we should take it now to the woods."

"No, we need to eat more, and it's too risky going back and forth carrying bodies. We should hide him here and later bring all the bodies with us just one time, after we finish eating" Mr. Bass said.

"What are we going to do about that?" Mr. Archibald asked. "We need at least one more."

"We should try to clear the street from possible witnesses. There really wasn't anybody respectable when they came out from the tavern, just some drunks and old beggars. Couldn't you get one of those for us?" he asked to Mr. Rhodes.

"A beggar? You want me to get an old beggar?" Mr. Rhodes said rather surprised.

"I think you have more possibilities to lure one than we do. Just make them believe you are feeling sorry for their suffering" Mr. Bass said.

"It doesn't have to be an old beggar" Mr. Archibald said. "Beggars go to sleep somewhere in this town. Maybe we could go look for it."

"What if we split? We could go look for the beggars and Vivian could go to the tavern and get someone else out and some of us could stay with her…" Mr. Rhodes said.

"No, I don't want to split" Mr. Bass said. "I think we should stay together for tonight."

"There must be a way to reach other places in town where the beggars could be" Mr. Archibald said. "We could try get there, and Lucius can lure someone, and after we drink we can go back here to see if Vibiana can get someone more to come out."

"I think we need to move this guy out of sight before someone sees him" Mr. Hudson said joining the conversation, "it looks like things are getting more animated inside" he said, referring to the increasing volume of the voices coming out of the tavern.

The men started to surround the body to see where they could hide it better. In the meantime, Ms. Rhodes and the Countess had smoothed their clothes and tried to tide themselves up as much as possible.

"You did a pretty good seduction act there" the Countess said to Ms. Rhodes, "it was quite impressive."

"Please, it was nothing" Ms. Rhodes said with an almost eye-roll, "you are still the better temptress I've ever seen."

"What are you two talking about?" Mr. Bass suddenly cut in with a frown in his face while turning his head to look at them from where he was standing. Because the women were speaking in low voices he really wasn't able to hear their conversation, but he had caught a few loose words and got the feeling he might not like the conversation they were having. His interruption prevented the Countess's replica to Ms. Rhodes's statement.

"Nothing, nothing you should worry about" Ms. Rhodes said while gesturing with her hands dismissively. Damn her brother and his prying ways! She knew he would be like this, over-attentive towards everything her friend did or say, at least for the next days. Nobody could talk with Cornelia without him wanting to know immediately what they were talking about. To further distract him Ms. Rhodes added: "Do you need help with something?" she asked, while walking with the Countess towards the rest of the group.

"No, we are fine" Mr. Bass answered, refocusing on the task at hand, still with a frown in his face though because he wasn't entirely satisfied with his sister reply, though he figured she was being sincere.

The men with the women's help were able to move and hide the body in the alley, and then explained their plan to them. After hearing it, however, Ms. Hudson said: "No. I have a better idea."

"You have a better idea?" Mr. Archibald asked with his eyebrows raised.

"Yes I do" Ms. Hudson answered, who was by now sporting a little smile on her face. "Follow me." And going toward the tavern's external wall that was just a few steps from them, she started to climb again towards the rooftop.

The rest looked at each other for a moment before climbing after her. Once they were all together, she went to the other extreme of the rooftop and jumped to another building that was left of the tavern, falling with such ability on her feet that she was more silent than a cat. The others were capable of doing the same and started following her, though in the case of the other women, their clothes were a bit of a hindrance. Not for Ms. Hudson though, who seemed to have a lot of practice in this way of moving from one place to another. She finally stopped in a rooftop from which you could see a group of streets with a rather worn-down aspect.

"Here" she said, "I noticed this area from afar when we were waiting in the tavern's rooftop. It's darker. Wouldn't this be the poorest area in the town?"

"I think you are right" Mr. Rhodes said. "This is the poorest area in the town. I think I remember it from the last time I was here. We don't come here a lot, though."

"I noticed some hoodlums coming out of the tavern towards this direction" Ms. Hudson said. "Why don't you go back a little and start walking from the beginning of the street?" she asked, pointing towards the main street below her feet. "Or even better," she said, on a second thought "why don't we distribute ourselves on several rooftops and wait for one that comes alone and drunk? With the tavern's noise that we were hearing before, a fight is bound to happen and some guy will probably come this way after being thrown out from there. We could jump over him when he comes to this point or enters one of the smaller streets here."

"You think you are able to do that? Jump over a human surprising him?" Mr. Bass asked, slightly amused by Ms. Rhodes idea, although he did see the potential in it.

"And what we will do with the body once we finish?" Mr. Hudson asked.

"Don't worry about the body" Ms. Hudson said, "if necessary, I will carry him back myself. As for the rest, yes I can do it. Unlike what you all seem to believe, I'm perfectly able to hunt alone or in group. Years living alone in the Mainland do that to you."

Mr. Archibald gave a surprised look to Mr. Hudson, who looked hesitant of adding anything more, yet a tacit understanding passed between the two men establishing that Mr. Hudson was going to explain what was all that about later.

"Let's do this then" the Countess said. "Let's decide our positions and wait for someone to pass."

They all agreed and decided which rooftops they were going to occupy and how they were going to distribute themselves. After that they all took their positions, with Ms. Hudson, Mr. Hudson and Mr. Rhodes on one rooftop, the Countess, Ms. Rhodes and Mr. Bass in a second rooftop, and Mr. Archibald and Vivian in a third one, all laying down on their stomachs near the edges of the rooftops, peering down the streets below them.

After a while waiting, a man came down the main street. Mr. Archibald and Mr. Bass were already starting to move to jump over him when Ms. Hudson whispered: "No. Something is not right."

"Since when you are an expert?" Mr. Bass said annoyed.

"I'm telling you, something is not right" Ms. Hudson insisted. "That man is not drunk enough or something."

In that moment they heard a noise, and when they looked down, the man had opened a door and a wife talking about a sick baby or something of the sort received him.

Ms. Hudson exhaled the breath she was holding. Mr. Bass rolled his eyes and laid down again, this time face up looking at the stars in the night sky, and the rest continued watching the street.

"You have become pretty good at this" Mr. Rhodes said to Ms. Hudson with admiration. They continued talking in whispers for a while.

Mr. Bass was bored out of his mind. With his left leg bend by the knee and his hands interlaced over his waist, he kept looking at the stars while hearing from time to time the Countess and Ms. Rhodes exchange a few whispered words. He knew they wouldn't say anything of significance in front of him, and he couldn't blame them. He also knew he was on edge and shouldn't behave like that, but he couldn't help it either. Whatever perfume she was wearing, it was driving him crazy since Germany. He just wanted to take her in his arms and beg on his knees that she forgave him. But he knew that wasn't on the agenda at the moment. They had a seriously pressing matter to attend, that needed to be solved if he ever wanted another opportunity with her. In order to have one more chance they both needed to live first.

"There" Ms. Hudson suddenly whispered, pointing towards a figure in the street. "That's our man."

Walking from the beginning of the street towards them was a man who was drunkenly swaying and even singing unintelligible parts of a song. And judging by his appearance he very well could be a beggar or some lowlife of sorts.

Everybody remained silent while the man continued walking down the street. Mr. Bass turned around to lie on his stomach again, while peering towards the street with the rest of the group.

"He's drunk, but he's still a large man. Are you still sure you can do it?" he whispered to Ms. Hudson.

"I can" Ms. Hudson answered.

"Wait a second, alone?" Mr. Hudson asked surprised.

"Well, it was her idea, wasn't it? I think she should take the prize first, if she can" Mr. Bass answered, smirking.

"You think she can?" Mr. Archibald whispered to Vivian, who just shrugged her shoulders.

"I can, you'll see" Ms. Hudson said determined. She stood up on four, like a feline about to jump, and actually taking impulse, she did just that. She grabbed the man's shoulders from behind while landing on her feet, and with an incredible fast movement, she then moved her left hand from the man's shoulder to his mouth to cover it, to also help tilt his head while keeping her right hand on his right shoulder, and going for the bite on the right side of the man's neck.

The others started descending from the rooftops, first Mr. Hudson and Mr. Rhodes, then Mr. Archibald and Vivian. Mr. Bass then noticed that the Countess and Ms. Rhodes were not hurrying up to descend.

"Aren't you going to eat?" he asked the Countess, while Ms. Rhodes finally descended to join the rest of their group.

"We already drank plenty with the first one, so we figured we should leave the rest of you have the first bites before we go" the Countess said referring to herself and Ms. Rhodes. "You should go eat first" she added.

Mr. Bass kept staring at her without saying a word. She had her hood down, so her hair and face were visible. She looked lovely under the moonlight. She locked eyes with him for a moment, trapped in the energy that always flowed between them wherever they exchanged a look. She suddenly snapped out of it and stood up, gathered her skirts in her hands, leaned forward to take impulse and jumped landing on her feet, immediately joining the others. Mr. Bass watched her do all that still marveled by her and with his heart aching and elated at the same time because as much as she was trying to hide it, she cared about him. He then stood up and jumped to join the others and drink.

Between all they dried the man and quickly moved to an alley to hide from view. Then the problem of what to do with the body came up.

"We should leave the town as quickly as possible and move this body to the forest" Mr. Hudson said.

"I told you, I can carry him if necessary" Ms. Hudson said.

"The horses are far from here, how are we going to reach them fast?" Mr. Archibald said.

"We could take him there and go back for the other body" Ms. Rhodes said.

"Alright, let's do the following" Mr. Rhodes said to help his friend. "A group can carry the body until we reach the street besides the tavern. The members of that group can take turns carrying the body if they want. One or two of us should go ahead of that group to make sure the way is clear, and one or two of us should walk at the end to make sure nobody saw or followed us. We should move little by little, first securing that everything is in order before advancing another stretch. Once we reach our destination we can put it with the other body and decide what to do then."

"We should do something like what we did when we rode over here" Mr. Bass said. "Celia can go ahead to clear the way and Cornelia can go with her if she wishes. Lucius should go at the end to make sure nobody is following us. Vibiana and Helvetia can join him if they want. Decimus, Numerius and I will take turns carrying the body. Or maybe we can move faster if we carry him between several people."

"I told you, I can carry him myself…" Ms. Hudson started to argue.

"We get it, you can carry him" Mr. Hudson cut her off. "Sister, please try to understand. We are no longer questioning your capabilities. You have proven yourself tonight. You took care of this meal; please let us now take care of the rest" he pleaded to her.

Ms. Hudson looked at him for a moment and then nodded her head in agreement. Mr. Bass and Mr. Rhodes looked at each other, nodded their heads too in agreement, and started working with the others to put their plan in place.

At the end, Ms. Rhodes and the Countess made sure that the way was clear, Mr. Archibald and Mr. Hudson carried the body, Mr. Bass and Vivian were next to them looking sideways of the group to make sure everything was clear, and Mr. Rhodes and Ms. Hudson made sure that nobody was behind them. In that way they returned safely to the street besides the tavern and put that body next to the other one.

"Now what?" Mr. Rhodes asked once they were all there. "One last meal before returning home? Or do you want to go back now?"

Everybody looked at each other, each thinking internally what they wanted to do. Finally Vivian said: "I can get another one."

"You are that hungry?" Mr. Bass asked with his eyebrows raised. "You really need another one?"

Vivian was silent for a moment, and finally looking at everybody, she said: "Watch me." And she started walking towards the main street.

The rest either climbed to the tavern's rooftop or hid in the shadows to watch her. She walked determinately to the main street, throwing away her brown cape, unpinning her hair and fixing her dress to look more provocative. When she reached the street, it was empty, but still she started walking differently, like she was slightly dizzy. She crossed to the sidewalk in front of the tavern and waited in the shadows for her next target.

She was lucky and didn't have to wait long. A burly man came out drunkenly from the tavern, still drinking. She came out from the shadows and walked towards him, practically throwing herself at him.

"Hello darling! Don't you want to spend a good time? I can make you spend a good time" she whispered, while placing her left hand on the man's right cheek to try to make him turn his head towards her and kiss him.

"Leave me alone" the man said while drunkenly drinking.

"Why do you want me to leave you alone?" Vivian asked him. "When I can make you…?" and she whispered the rest to this ear.

Suddenly the man grabbed her by the waist with his left arm and gave her a bruising kiss. He even quickly slipped his arm upwards to try to cup her breast with his hand. She parted the kiss laughing loudly like this amused her enormously.

He tried to kiss her again, but Vivian kept laughing and with her left hand grabbed the lapel of his worn out jacket to drag him towards the side street. When they were reaching it she allowed him to gather her in his arms and start kissing her mouth and then her neck in frenzy, while they were both tumbling down inside the street. He finally pushed her against a wall and started pulling up her skirts while saying intelligible and unintelligible nonsense, like "we are going to have such a good time." By that moment Vivian's arms were circling his neck, and she was pretending to enjoy herself by moaning in his ear. Just before the man could start kissing more than her neck, she suddenly grabbed his face with both hands, opened her mouth with her fangs on display and went to bit his neck right in the jugular.

The rest came out of the shadows or descended from the rooftop. The minute she felt they were around her, she pushed herself off the wall and threw all her weight on top of the man to land them both on the floor. She quickly moved to continue drinking from his neck but leaving space for the others to drink.

When they finally finished with him, they all stood up and started preparing to carry the bodies to the outskirts of the town, where the horses were waiting. In the meantime they started talking.

"Vibiana, that was very dangerous…" Mr. Hudson started.

"Decimus, not now" Vivian replied to him, with a face that broke no argument.

The Countess, who had scrunched up her nose in disgust when she watched the kissing scene from the rooftop, told Vivian: "that's how you do this? You let him put his hands all over you?"

"I'm sorry" Vivian said with irony, "but not everybody can pretend that they are prostitutes hiding behind an innocent façade. If I had gone into that tavern like you and Celia did, they would have thrown me out or asked immediately who were my masters or what was a slave doing there" she said, turning around without waiting for an answer and going to search for the cape that she had thrown away. The Countess kept frowning at her back, but then turned around and went towards Ms. Rhodes, while Mr. Hudson kept looking at Vivian for a moment and then at the floor, sighing while putting his hands in his pockets.

"Ugh, I still can't believe I had to drink beer tonight" Ms. Rhodes commented to the Countess that had just joined her, while looking at Peter's body that lay on the ground.

"This will be a difficult one to move" Mr. Bass mused while looking at the last's man body on the ground, while Mr. Archibald and Mr. Hudson also surrounded the body.

They decided that the Countess and Ms. Rhodes would have to carry Peter's body, Ms. Hudson, Mr. Rhodes and Vivian would carry the second body and Mr. Hudson, Mr. Bass and Mr. Archibald would carry the third body. Halfway towards the horses however, Mr. Rhodes had to help the other men with the third body because it was too heavy and was stalling everybody. Once they reached the horses, they put the bodies in three of them. Ms. Hudson then shared a horse with her brother, Ms. Rhodes shared another horse with her brother, and Mr. Archibald accepted to share his horse with Vivian. Nobody even dared to suggest that the Countess and Mr. Bass share a horse.

"We should bury the third man as far away as possible" Mr. Bass said. "We can bury the other two men closer to town."

"You know, tonight we did all the hunting" Ms. Rhodes mused, pointing towards all the women. "Tomorrow you guys should do the hunting" she said, pointing towards all the men.

"Alright, tomorrow we will take care of the hunting" Mr. Bass said, rolling his eyes over his sister's antics. "We should go now, it's getting late and we still need to dig the graves."

They all started riding, also controlling the reins of the horses carrying the bodies. They did three stops along the way back home to dig the graves and bury the bodies. Normally, the men would have taken care of this singlehandedly, but due to the urgency of going back home, they all dig the graves. After they finished burying all the bodies, each person rode their own horses until they reached the stables of their home, going back in the same order in which they had departed from it.

**A/N:** Once again it wasn't my intention to finish this chapter where it ended. Actually it was easier to write than the previous one, everything flowed more easily, and it turned out that it was the longest chapter. I will do my best to include in the next chapter the details of their return to the mansion and well as the visitors they are expecting.


End file.
